154- Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



not an instance of delay. Of what avail is the remark, even were it 

 correct ? For the Secretary himself admits that he purposely delays 

 them j and he defends that practice lest " an improper use might be 

 made of them." I see no other interpretation of this than to suppose 

 that the Secretary presumes the Fellows of the Royal Society will 

 make an improper use of their own documents. 



Such are the charges which the Secretary of the Royal Society has 

 pronounced to be " groundless," — a term about as appropriate as that 

 by which in his letter he designates the transition from fact to fiction 

 as a correction [" That minute was afterwards corrected"] . 



3rd. The Secretary having stated in his letter to the President, that 

 I have drawn the "sweeping conclusion that the whole of the minutes 

 " are unworthy of the least confidence, and can never hereafter be appealed 

 " to as authentic documents," ventures in his Observations to point to 

 the concluding paragraph of page 65 of the "■ Decline of Science in 

 England" for the proof. 



I admire the boldness rather than the discretion, or the candour of 

 such a reference. Whoever will take the trouble to turn to that 

 passage, will find that my observation was confined entirely to one 

 single Resolution. 



To conclude : I have bestowed too much pains on the subject to 

 have any misgivings about the accuracy of the statements I have made 

 respecting the mismanagement of the Royal Society ; and if I thought 

 additional evidence necessary for their support, I would invite the 

 Secretary to refute them. 



Dorset Street, Manchester Square, CHARLES BABBAGE. 



9th July, 1830. 



DR. READE S LECTURES ON VISION. 



Dr. Reade, of Cork, requests us to announce that he is about to 

 deliver, at the Mechanics' Institution, a course of lectures on his New 

 Theory of Vision, " demonstrating, from numerous experiments, that 

 the Cornea is the true seat of vision, and that we see by means of 

 erect and reflected, and not by refracted and inverted images." 



Dr. Reade also has ready for the press a treatise on the same sub- 

 ject. 



REDUCTION OF NITRATE OF SILVER. 



In 1826, M. C. de Filiere had prepared for him, by one of his 

 pupils, a considerable quantity of nitrate of silver. The finest cry- 

 stals were put upon blotting paper, and were set aside, out of the 

 contact of any substances floating in the air. 



The packet having been examined at the beginning of Novem- 

 ber last, the paper had assumed a deep violet colour; and he was 

 surprised to find that the crystals, without losing their form, were 

 become perfectly malleable metallic silver. — Ann. de Chim. Nov. . 

 1829. 



tions, that the Assistant Secretary summoned a Council by "accident." He 

 aummoncd it by design, according to the regular practice, which he had 

 always followed without censure, and in which he had been instructed by his 

 predecessor in office. 



MAG- 



