353 



the medals you award are in high estimation, and science is stimu- 

 lated to its grandest efforts, because you are viewed by all as just 

 and able judges. To hold securely that proud position, learning 

 must be your distinguishing attribute; in the altered state of things 

 it is learning which fits you for your new duties, and so long as the 

 Fellowship is regarded as the reward of services., in the cause of 

 science of no common order, or of proved scientific eminence at the 

 universities, so long, I think, we may predict with confidence that 

 the Royal Society will flourish. 



Colonel Sabine, 



I am happy to have the honour of handing to you the Copley 

 Medal in charge for Professor Dove. 



Three important branches of Terrestrial Physics have recently 

 been greatly advanced, and by similar means ; the adequate discus- 

 sion of accumulated results of observation — I allude to the tides, 

 terrestrial magnetism, and the distribution of heat over the surface 

 of the globe. Our knowledge of the tides was limited, and frag- 

 mentary, till it became extended and systematized by the researches 

 of Dr. Whewell, and notwithstanding the numerous detached ob- 

 servations which had long been made on the eflfects of terrestrial 

 magnetism, we were still ignorant of much of the real laws of the 

 phenomena, till under the leading influence of Gauss, not only indi- 

 vidaals, but Governments were induced to unite in measures for 

 obtaining the accurate and systematic observations, which in the 

 hands of Colonel Sabine are leading to such determinate and inter- 

 esting results. The labours of Dr. Whewell and Colonel Sabine have 

 received their well-merited acknowledgements in the Medals which 

 have been respectively awarded to them ; and this year the Copley 

 Medal has been awarded to Professor Dove for his laborious and 

 valuable researches on the distribution of heat over the surface of the 

 globe. The results obtained in all these cases constitute unquestion- 

 ably great steps in the progress of science ; and though labours 

 such as these may not necessarily demand that acute discrimination 

 and inventive faculty required for the discovery of truths before 

 unthought-of, they do require what is scarcely less valuable, those 

 enlarged and comprehensive views by which we are enabled to 

 recognize real order in the midst of apparent confusion, and deduce 

 from the most complex and intricate phenomena, the simple laws to 

 which they may be referable. The work which Professor Dove has 

 recently completed comprises the results obtained by him during 

 many years, by the careful and elaborate discussion of an immense 

 number of recorded observations of the temperature at numerous 

 stations, and in almost every accessible region of the globe. The 

 details of these discussions have been published by him at diff^erent 

 times, principally in the Transactions of the Berhn Academy. In 

 this recent work a large map exhibits the isothermal lines for 

 January and July, the months of extreme winter and summer tem- 

 peratures ; while twelve small maps engraved on two sheets exhibit 

 the isothermals for each successive month, and enable us to trace at 



Proceedings of the Royal Society. Vol. VI. 25 



