12 Proceedings of Royal Society of Ediriburgh. [sess. 
John Couch Adams. — As the incidents in the career of this 
extraordinary man have been given in so many biographical notices 
that have appeared in Europe and America, and as an obituary of 
him has been prepared for our Proceedings by the Astronomer- 
Royal for Scotland, I shall merely say that he was elected a Fellow 
of our Society in 1849, and that a valuable collection of his papers 
on the Lunar Theory and other astronomical subjects, and also on 
the Theory of Numbers, was lately presented to the Library of this 
Society by his widow, Mrs Adams. 
Sir George B. Airy. — As an obituary notice has been prepared 
of him for our Proceedings by the Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, 
and will be read in due course, it is unnecessary for me on this 
occasion to enter into the details of his life. He was elected a 
Fellow of this Society in 1835. 
Since last meeting I am happy to announce that the Society has 
obtained from the Board of Manufactures a new room, which was 
previously occupied by the Society of Antiquaries, and which 
will for some time afford accommodation to the additions of 
books which are coming in to our library so fast, and in such 
large quantity, from almost all the scientific societies of the 
world. 
The Society was lately invited by the University of Padua to 
send a representative to take part in the celebration of the ter- 
centenary of the appointment of Galileo to the Professorship of 
Mathematics in that University — the date of his first lecture being 
the 7th December 1592. The letter of invitation says — “Illo enim 
die. Anno mdxcii. summus acerrimusque investigator legum 
quibus caelestium terrestriumque rerum natura continetur, hie 
cathedram ascendit, eamque voce sua immortalitati commendavit. 
... In spe sum, fore, doctissimi viri, ut, si quis vestrum adsit, et 
feriis nostris decus augeatur et apertius fiat, quanti sit apud homines 
veritatis studiosos gloria viri, qui certam rerum experiendarum viam 
ac rationem invenit atque constituit.” Signed by the Rector 
Carolus F. Ferraris, xxvi. Septem. mdcccxcii. 
To this invitation the Council authorised the following reply to 
be presented to the University, through Professor Cremona of 
Rome, who was appointed the Society’s representative : — 
