1872.] 



President's Address. 



23 



The President then addressed the Society as follows : — 

 Gentlemen, 



In commencing the Annual Address which is customary at the Society's 

 Anniversary Meeting, I will first allude to our local position. The 

 Society's Officers have reason to believe that, before the next Anniversary 

 Meeting, we may be established in the new apartments now in prepara- 

 tion for us in this Palace. "We hope to find in them rooms for our 

 Meetings and for our Books more convenient than those which we at 

 present occupy, and to be placed in advantageous proximity to the other 

 Scientific Societies of the Metropolis. 



On the personnel of the Society, the proper accounts will soon be 

 placed before you, drawn up under the superintendence of your Secre- 

 taries. But I must allude to one loss, the accidental death of our Foreign 

 Member, M. Delaunay. Science has, I fear, sustained a serious injury 

 by this calamity. It is known to all who have given attention to the 

 progress of Gravitational Astronomy, that M. Delaunay had, with incre- 

 dible labour (well exhibited in several ponderous volumes), produced a 

 work on the lunar motions which was never surpassed in order, and, I 

 believe, never equalled in exactitude. We were looking for the comple- 

 tion of this undertaking, by careful investigations of the secular equa- 

 tions and equations of very long period on which Chronology in par- 

 ticular depends, and also by the formation of Lunar Tables in a con- 

 venient form. There is reason to hope that these works have been far 

 advanced and may yet be recovered ; but I have no positive information 

 to that effect. M. Delaunay, adopting and extending in the Paris Ob- 

 servatory all the labours of his distinguished predecessor, had advanced 

 far with an admirable series of systematic records of topographical 

 meteorology and other local measures in France. 



I regret to announce that Dr. Sharpey finds it necessary, in justice not 

 only to his own health, but also to his estimate of the powers which he 

 is able to devote to the service of the Society, to resign the office of Secre- 

 tary which he has long held with so much advantage to the Society. 

 Every Fellow of the Society, but more "especially those who have had the 

 pleasure of serving on Council with Dr. Sharpey, will, I am sure, sympa- 

 thize with me in regret that we lose his services, and still more that it is 

 from the cause which I have mentioned. If, however, the Society should 

 see fit to confirm the Council's recommendation of appointment of Pro- 

 fessor Huxley in his place, I am confident that Dr. Sharpey will be one 

 of the first to acknowledge that he transmits his office to no unworthy 

 successor. 



Among the labours distributed among Fellows of the Society of which 

 the results do not appear in the Philosophical Transactions are the 



