XX 



received from the universities and other scientific bodies is given after 

 his name in the List of Fellows of this Society. He was D.C.L. of 

 Oxford, LL.D. of Cambridge and Edinburgh, one of the first members 

 of the Senate in the University of London. He was one of the eight 

 foreign Associates of the Institute of France, and received the Lalande 

 Medal. He was made K.C.B. in 1872. In 1875 he received the 

 freedom of the City of London, enclosed in a gold casket. He was a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society for fifty-five years, received both the 

 Copley and Royal Medals, and was made President in 1871. He was 

 on the Council of the Astronomical Society for more than fifty years, 

 was five times President, and received two gold medals. He was 

 President of the British Association at the meeting at Ipswich in 

 1851. He w T as an honorary member of the Institution of Civil Engi- 

 neers, and received the Telford Medal. He was elected a foreign 

 Associate of the Dutch Academy of Sciences in 1878, and held 

 honorary titles from many Continental and American Societies. He 

 also received the Albert Medal of the Society of Arts, which was 

 presented to him by the Prince of Wales. He was a member of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the Royal Irish Academy. He 

 received a diamond snuff-box from the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, 

 and decorations from the Emperor of Brazil. He was Chevalier of 

 the order " Ponr le merite " of Prussia; he belonged to the Legion of 

 Honour of France, and had decorations from Sweden. A gold snuff- 

 box was given to him by the Steam Navigation Company, a silver-gilt 

 inkstand by the River Dee Company, and he held a French Sevres 

 vase as a Commissioner on Standards. 



When Sir George Airy retired from the Observatory at the age of 

 eighty, the Board of Visitors recorded in their Proceedings a resolu- 

 tion expressing, in an emphatic manner, their sense of his eminent 

 services throughout the long period of forty-five years during which 

 he had presided over the Observatory. Among his many services to 

 science they especially mentioned the following : — (a) The reorganisa- 

 tion of the Observatory ; (6) the designing of instruments of excep- 

 tional stability and delicacy ; (c) the extension of the means of 

 making observations on the Moon in such parts of her orbit as are 

 not accessible to the transit circle ; (d) the investigation of the effects 

 of iron ships on compasses ; (e) the establishment of time signals. 

 Turning next to his labours in departments of science not directly 

 connected with the Royal Observatory, they called attention to the 

 high estimation in which his contributions to the theory of the tides, 

 to the undulatory theory of light, and to various abstract branches of 

 mathematics are held by men of science throughout the world. 



During his residence at Cambridge Sir George married Richarda, 

 the eldest daughter of the Rev. Richard Smith, of Edensor, in Derby- 

 shire: Lady Airy died in 1875, after a long illness. After his 



