Royal Physical Society. 225 



hood, has passed suddenly away ; and wherever in either 

 hemisphere physical science is cultivated, or the bypast history 

 of our globe excites legitimate interest, his early death will 

 be felt and deplored as a heavy loss. The spoiler has broken 

 abruptly off many a train of ingenious thought, — cut short 

 many a course of sedulous inquiry, — arrested, just ere its for- 

 mation, many a profound induction, — and scattered hoards of 

 unrecorded knowledge, the adequate regathering of which 

 many years to come may fail to witness." How little did we 

 think, who then listened to the delightful lecture, of which these 

 words were the conclusion, — nay, how little did he who uttered 

 them then think, — that in this brief period of time they would 

 thus form his own epitaph. " But," again to quote his own 

 words, " our idle regrets can neither restore the dead nor be- 

 nefit the living. Let us rather manifest our regard for our 

 illustrious brother, taken so unexpectedly from among us, by 

 making his disinterested devotion to science our example. 

 Let us diligently carry on in the love of truth our not unim- 

 portant labours, remembering that much may be accomplished 

 in comparatively brief space, if no time be lost ; and that to 

 each and all that ' night cometh' at an uncertain time, under 

 whose dull and unbroken shadow * no man can work.' " 



The Donations to the Library were laid on the table, and thanks voted 

 to the donors ; these included : — 



1. Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Vol. XXI., Part 

 III., 1855-56. 2. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1855- 

 56. — From the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 3. Proceedings of the Liter- 

 ary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, No. X. ; 1855-56. — From the 

 Society. 4. Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1854 — 

 Agriculture : 5. Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 

 1854 — Arts and Manufactures — Vol. II. — Illustrations. — From the Com- 

 missioner of Patents, U.S.A. 6. Transactions of the Michigan State 

 Agricultural Society for 1854, Vol. VI. — From the Society. 7. List of 

 Foreign Correspondents of the Smithsonian Institution, 1856. — Presented 

 through the Smithsonian Institute, U.S.A. 



The following communications were then read : — 



