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ceiving a certain amount of assistance from the Government Grant ; 

 and although no one has proposed any very extensive series of ex- 

 periments, still many facts no doubt will be obtained in various de- 

 partments of science, — a valuable addition to human knowledge ; but, 

 scattered over science at large, they will not of course make that 

 brilliant display which they would do if concentrated, as in M. Ke- 

 gnault's inquiry, on one specific object. 



I may also add, that many distinguished men have recently come 

 forward here as candidates, and I am happy to say that so far the 

 new Statute appears to be working very well, and as yet I do not 

 see any probability that men of unquestioned merit will have too 

 long to wait for admission. 



Your Council having awarded the Copley Medal to Professor Owen, 

 it becomes my duty to give some account of his discoveries. They 

 cannot be described by a mere reference to one or two great works : 

 they have appeared successively in a variety of publications, and are 

 so numerous, that to notice each, however slightly, will almost take 

 up more time than I can venture to ask for. Any further general 

 observations would therefore be inadmissible ; and thanking you and 

 the Council for the kind assistance I have received during the past 

 year, and indeed on all occasions, I will at once proceed to state the 

 grounds of the award of the Copley Medal. 



The Contributions to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, 

 made by Professor Owen in published works, began to appear about 

 the time of the decease of Cuvier in 1832, and have been continued 

 with brief interruptions since that period to the present time : the 

 mantle of that great man seems to have descended, at his death, 

 upon the shoulders of our distinguished countryman ; and it is not 

 a little interesting to remark how this circumstance has produced, 

 as it were, an uninterrupted succession of important discoveries in 

 these and the collateral sciences, during a period, already passed, of 

 sixty years, by two men of different countries indeed, but the cha- 

 racter of whose minds, and the originality and importance of whose 

 discoveries and generalizations, have placed them on an eminence, 

 not reached by any other philosophers of modern times, in the same 

 branches of knowledge. 



Professor Owen's earlier works are principally devoted to making 

 known the labours of John Hunter, and facilitating, by the construc- 

 tion of an elaborate catalogue, the study of his unrivalled collection 

 of anatomical preparations in the Museum of the Royal College of 

 Surgeons. 



It is unnecessary for me to do more than allude to the masterly 

 manner in which this arduous task was performed. In 1840, the 

 ten years' labour was completed by the publication of the fifth and 

 last volume of a catalogue, which, for laborious research, for new 

 and important views in anatomical and physiological science, is un- 

 rivalled in any age or country ; and the Council of the College, in 

 the advertisement to the last volume of the Physiological Catalogue, 

 express " their great gratification in acknowledging the unremitting 

 labour bestowed on the work by Professor Owen, to whom its pub- 



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