By T. 8. Maskelym. 



131 



of the four vols, of observations which he has published, that if by any great 

 revolution the works of all other astronomers were lost, and this collection pre- 

 served, it would contain sufficient materials to raise again nearly entire the 

 edifice of modem astronomy, which cannot be said of any other collection." 



Up to Dr. Maskelyne's time the observations made at the Royal 

 Observatory were considered the private property of the observers, 

 and had never been published ; it was he who saw the great im- 

 portance of their annual publication, and who, together with the 

 P.R.S., induced the Royal Society to undertake it, giving rise to 

 Delambre's remark " Et e'est par la qu 'il a merit e d'etre pendant 

 40 ans le chef et comme le regulateur des astronomes." 



His communications to the Royal Society are numerous, as will 

 be seen by the list of his works appended to this notice of his life. 



He was presented by the Council of the Royal Society with the 

 gold Copley Medal, for his work in 1774 of " weighing the world 

 from the flanks of Schehallien," 1 a mountain in Perthshire, "by 

 which the mean density of the earth was computed and its central 

 attraction according to the Newtonian theory first demonstrated." 

 " The apparent difference of latitude between two stations on 

 opposite sides of the mountain being compared with the real 

 difference of latitude obtained by triangulation." 

 Besides the Copley Medal he received : — 

 A gold medal, from the Elector of Hanover. 

 A gold medal, from Stanislaus, King of Poland. 

 A medal of the Abbe Poczubut (Astronomer to the King of 



Poland) in token of his friendship, in 1777. 

 A bronze medal from Catherine of Russia, together with a 

 diploma 2 making him foreign member of the Imperial 

 Academy of Science of St. Petersburg, 1776. 

 A silver medal from the Institut National des Sciences et des 

 Arts at Paris, twelfth year of the French Republic. 



He was one of the eight foreign associates of the Academy of 



1 These were the words in which Thomas Carlyle spoke of that famous exploit, 

 3 Signed by the mathematician Euler, the year before his death. 



