Obituary Notices. 
V 
The Gold Medal of the Koyal Astronomical Society was awarded 
to Professor Adams in 1866 for his researches on the moon’s parallax 
and acceleration. After the great display of the Leonid meteors 
in the same year, Adams undertook the difficult task of determining 
their period. The researches of Professor H. A. Newton, of Yale 
College, had already shown that they must move in one of five 
definite orbits, but the difficulty was to decide which of them they 
followed. Here, again, Adams invoked the perturbations to solve 
the problem, and as the result of a most profound investigation, 
showed beyond all doubt that the periodic time of the meteors is 
33 J years. This orbit, it is scarcely necessary to add, closely 
resembles that of Comet 1866, I., as was first pointed out by Pro- 
fessor C. F. W. Peters. 
Professor Adams communicated 43 papers to scientific societies, 
according to the Royal Society’s Catalogue. To the Nautical 
Almanac he contributed valuable tables of the moon’s parallax, and 
a Continuation of Damoiseau’s Tables of Jupiter’s Satellites. His 
classical Explanation of the Observed Irregularities in the Motion of 
Uranus appeared in the Appendix to the Nautical Almanac for the 
year 1851. 
Professor Adams died at Cambridge Observatory on January 21st, 
1892, after having been more or less an invalid for fully two years. 
Those who knew him most intimately cannot sufficiently express the 
profound impression made on them by his great gentleness and 
unassuming manner. 
