1868.] 



President's Address. 



147 



messages, previously prepared on slips of paper, are, by passing through 

 a very small machine constructed somewhat on the principle of the Jac- 

 quard Loom, made to print the messages at the remote station, in the ordi- 

 nary telegraphic characters, with a rapidity unattainable by the hand of 

 an operator. 



Allied to these inventions are others where electro-magnetism is the 

 motive power, as, for example, the electro-magnetic clock for telegraphing 

 time, a modification of which has since been employed to aid in deter- 

 mining the longitude of distant places ; also the Chronoscope, for mea- 

 suring the velocity of projectiles or falling bodies. 



In this enumeration of his discoveries, inventions, and researches, we 

 have passed over many, such as his speaking machine, the investigation 

 of Fessel's Gyroscope, his experiments in illustration of Foucault's proof 

 of the rotation of the earth, and others. 



More than enough, however, has been stated to justify the presentation 

 of the Copley Medal on this occasion to our eminent fellow-.countiyman. 



Sir Charles Wheatstone, 

 I have the very agreeable duty of presenting to you this Medal, which 

 you will receive as a testimony of the sense so universally entertained by 

 your countrymen, and specially by the Fellows of the Royal Society, of the 

 high scientific merit and practical value of your many discoveries and 

 inventions, and of their varied applications. 



The Council has awarded a Royal Medal to the Rev. Dr. George Salmon, 

 Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Dublin, for his original 

 investigations on Analytical Geometry, published in the Transactions of 

 the Royal Irish Academy and in the Philosophical Transactions, — and, 

 specially, for his solution of the problem of the degree of a surface reci- 

 procal to a given surface — and for his researches in connexion with surfaces 

 subject to given conditions, analogous to those of Chasles in plane 

 curves. 



Besides the original investigations thus referred to, Dr. Salmon is the 

 author of a series of works on Conic Sections, on higher Plane Curves, on 

 Geometry oi Three Dimensions, and on higher Algebra (the modern 

 Analysis), full of original matter of great value to the advanced mathe- 

 matician, and at the same time adapted to the requirements of the 

 student. These works have become widely spread as text-books through- 

 out Europe ; and the estimation in which they are held is attested by the 

 fact that they have already been translated into French, German, Italian, 

 and Russian. 



Dr. Salmon, 



I have the pleasure of presenting you this Medal in testimony of the 



