Annual Report of the Council. , , lv. 



Cayley as one of the fathers of the " eglise invariantive." His 

 intellectual sympathies, however, were by no means narrow; 

 his earliest paper was on Fresnel's Theory of Double 

 Refraction, and one of the most remarkable productions of 

 his middle life consisted- in some extremely elegant additions 

 to Poinsot's Theory of Rotation. His diction was marked 

 by a strong individuality, and at times by a genuine 

 eloquence. To the lay reader his characteristics are 

 perhaps most attractively and clearly revealed in the 

 address which he delivered to the members of the British 

 Association in 1869. This was framed in vindication of 

 his chosen science from some strictures which had been 

 recently passed upon it by an eminent biologist. It was 

 universal!}? recognised that a great controversialist had for 

 once met his match ; but the address has a more permanent 

 interest in that it discloses to the outer world something 

 of the vis mot fix of the pure mathematician. We are not 

 without indications of the- way in which such men as Gauss, 

 Jacobi, and Henry Smith have thought of their subject, but 

 in no case perhaps has the revelation been so complete 

 or appealed to so wide a circle as in the present instance. 



Sylvester had the satisfaction , of seeing his work , fully 

 honoured both at home and abroad. From the Royal 

 Society he received a Royal Medal in 1861 and the Copley 

 Medal in 1880. The University of Cambridge repaired to 

 some extent the injustice which he had suffered in his 

 earlier years by conferring on him in later life the honorary 

 degree of Doctor of Science ; he was also made an Honorary 

 Fellow of St. John's. Amongst innumerable foreign dis- 

 tinctions may be mentioned the Foreign Membership of 

 the Institute of France, and of the Royal Academy of 

 Berlin. He was added to our own roll of Honorary 

 Members in 1861. H. L. 



Auguste Adolphe Lucien Trecul was born at Mon- 

 doubleau (Loir-et-Cher) on January 8, 181 8. He studied 

 pharmacy in Paris, and became a hospital pharmacist in 



