102 Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
not been less vigilant and cautious than heretofore in the selection of 
the papers to be printed. Although much care has been given to 
ing the expenses of illustration within reasonable bounds, the cost of 
the Society’s publications has been this year unusually high; yet I am _ 
lad to be able to state that our whole expenditure within the year has 
fallen within our income. With your permission, I will briefly advert 
to a few of the subjects which have occupied the Society’s attention im 
the past year. 
The researches of Kirchhoff and Bunsen have rendered it in a hi 
fixed lines. The apparent diurnal motion of the stars causes much 
. 
only by their effects. Nor can the astronomical and physical parts 
the inquiry be well dissociated, so as to be separately undertaken by 
different individuals ; for the most elaborate drawings can hardly convey 
a faithful idea of the various aspects of the different dark and bright 
lines, which yet must be borne in mind in instituting a comparison in 
cases of apparent coincidence. It is fortunate, therefore, that the inquiry 
h en taken up by two gentlemen working in concert. Ina sh 
paper read to the Society on the 26th of last February, and published 
in the Proceedings, Mr. Huggins and Dr. Miller have described and 
figured the spectra of three of the brighter stars, and this part of the 
inquiry will doubtless be continued. In a paper since presented to the 
Society, Mr. Huggins describes the means employed for practically 
ception 
Professor Tyndall has given us the fourth of a series of papers upon : 
_ Rays of heat; and that certain portions of these heat-rays are 
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