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SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
ASTRONOMY. 
The Astronomical Society's Medal to Professor Simon Neivcomb. — The 
President of the Society, in giving the medal to Mr. Huggins for Professor 
Newcomb, dealt at length with the latter’s high claims for it. Of Professor 
Newcomb’s writings, he said that they exhibit all of them a combination, 
on the one hand, of mathematical skill and power, and, on the other hand, of 
good hard work — devoted to the furtherance of astronomical science. The 
“ Memoir on the Lunar Theory ” contains the successful development of a 
highly original idea, and cannot but be regarded as a great step in advance 
in the method of the variation of the elements and in theoretical dynamics 
generally j the two sets of planetary tables are works of immense labour, em- 
bodying results only attainable by the exercise of such labour under the 
guidance of profound mathematical skill, ajid which are needs in the present 
state of astronomy. 
The Astronomical Society's New Rooms. — The Council had expected that 
the Society would have been in possession of their new rooms in Burlington 
House in time for this anniversary meeting. Many unforeseen causes for 
delay, however, have occurred ; but the Council have now been assured by 
Mr. Barry, the architect, that in April next the decorations and fittings of 
the rooms will be completely finished. As a question of prudence, as well 
as of convenience, it will be probably thought necessary to defer the migra- 
tion of the Society from Somerset House till the conclusion of the present 
session. This will give time for the walls to become perfectly dry, especially 
in the basement, and thus the rooms will be made more habitable for the 
assistant-secretary. It may be as well to record that the entrance to the 
rooms is the first door on the left hand on entering the quadrangle from 
Piccadilly. 
The Last Volume of the u Monthly Notices." — It is a fact that speaks well for 
the progress of the Astronomical Society that the last volume of the “Monthly 
Notices ” is the largest that has ever appeared. It clearly exhibits the 
general activity of the Society during the past year, as well as the progress 
of astronomical science. Several of the papers are of more than usual 
interest, and more than the ordinary number of plates illustrate some of the 
more important. The valuable charts of the transits of Venus of 1874 and 
1882, drawn by Mr. Proctor, may be specially referred to. These show the 
lines of equal acceleration and retardation of ingress and egress, and also 
the lines of equal duration for internal contact in 1874, and for external 
