SULPIIURET OF LEAD, COPPER, AND ANTIMONY. QQJ 



Transactions for 1809. This I had the greater reason to 

 hope, as the time when it was delivered was considerably 

 before that, when the Royal Society recommenced its 

 meetings. After these took place however, I found it im- 

 possible to get it read, hot with standing I requested it re- 

 peatedly. The time passed on, and 1 could not but fore- 

 see, that it would have a powerful opposition to surmount 

 in the committee of the Royal Society, under which it 

 would probably sink. I could not however make any other 

 iise of the paper. The first part of the Transactions was 

 already filled up, when at length I learned from Dr. Wol- 

 laston, that it had been read on the 4th of May. The time 

 however still passed on, and nothing gave me reason to 

 suppose, that the committee was taking any steps to have 

 it printed. On this subject it preserved the profoundest 

 silence, which I endeavoured to penetrate in vain. It was Ordered to be 

 not till the 23d of June, when its vacation was nearly ap- placed in the 



i • , r • /■ i i- i r *•"%'■ archives of the 



proachmg, that I was informed or the rate, to which appa- Society: 



rently it had been condemned from the beginning, by a 

 letter from the committee, in which it was said, that, not 

 deeming it expedient to print it at present^ it was ordered 

 to be deposited in the archives of the Royal Society. 



Such are the reasons, that have .hitherto prevented the but should 

 publication of this paper, and at the same time have de- havebeeiigcV- 

 privfd it of the place it ought to have occupied* in fjet it 

 seems, that, since the critique of Mr. Smithson, as unbe- 

 coming as it was unfounded, obtained a place in the Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Society, it could not without injustice 

 refuse one of its members, whom it must have seen with 

 regret to be the object of it, and who hitherto had been a 

 zealous and approved coadjutor in its labours, the only in- 

 demnification he could receive, that of demonstrating the 

 truth of his first assertions. I appeal to the Members of 

 the Society themselves, who shall read this paper, and who 

 know me sufficiently to do me the justice, I think, I de- 

 serve, whether I could on any account have expected tins 

 singular proceeding on the part of its committee. 



Q 2 Endellion; 



