240 



loids are very expensive materials, and the principal object of the 

 grant was to meet this expense. The last grants I have to notice 

 are to Professor Stokes, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cam- 

 bridge, for experiments to determine the index of friction in different 

 gases ; and to Professor Hopkins, of Cambridge, for investigations 

 on the effect of pressure on the temperature of fusion of certain sub- 

 stances ; both inquiries are attended with great difficulties, but the 

 results cannot fail to be of the highest interest. In each case appa- 

 ratus of an expensive character was required, which has recently- 

 been completed ; and some progress has been made in the prelimi- 

 nary experiments, but a short time will necessarily elapse before the 

 results shall have been ascertained with sufficient certainty to fit 

 them for communication to this Society. 



I have thus given a very slight sketch of the various inquiries which 

 have been completed, or are in progress, aided by the Government 

 Grant. In all cases the notice has been as brief as possible ; still I trust 

 enough has been said to show that the efforts made by your Council 

 to employ to the best advantage the means at their disposal, have 

 not been unsuccessful. 



The prospects of science are brightening in all directions : the 

 many recent applications of science to utilitarian purposes have satis- 

 fied the masses, that science is not a mere unprofitable abstraction : 

 the progress of knowledge dispelling error, seems to have dissipated 

 the delusion that in science there might possibly be something un- 

 genial to our institutions and to stable government. The feeling 

 seems rapidly to be gaining ground, that our place, as a nation, will 

 depend in no small degree upon our success in seizing upon the 

 truths of science, and applying them; that in fact it is true that 

 knowledge is power. It is therefore not improbable that unusual 

 efforts will be made to give an impulse to scientific research of every 

 kind, and that this Society, taking the place it has ever held, at the 

 head of English science, will be called upon for renewed efforts, 

 For that place your Society is more than ever fitted, as the fellow- 

 ship stands much higher than it ever did before. The merits of the 

 candidates for fellowship are tested with severity, but with strict 

 justice, and consequently the fellowship is a real warrant of merit. 

 I need perhaps hardly add, that at every election we see our ranks 

 recruited by men who hold the first place of eminence in theoretical 

 and practical science. 



Chevalier Bunsen, 



I am most happy to have the honour of committing to your care 

 the Copley Medal for Baron Humboldt. 



The Royal Society have awarded him the highest honour which it 

 was in their power to confer, to mark their sense of the great value 

 of his contributions to Terrestrial Physics during a long series of 

 years. Your Foreign Secretary has very recently drawn up for the 

 Council an account of Baron Humboldt's researches : that has been 

 printed, and therefore it will be unnecessary for me to go over the 

 same ground again. It is enough to say that there is no one ac- 



