127 
determined upon writing and reading a paper before its mem- 
bers, based upon this great principle ; and I trust the result 
may prove that I have not laboured in vain. 
The Chairman. — I am sure we ought to express our best thanks to Mr. 
Titcomb for his able paper. I will now call upon the Honorary Secretary to 
read some communications which have been received from those unable to be 
present to-night. 
Captain F. Petrie. — The first point, taken up in the letters I have received, 
is referred to in the 23rd section of the paper. Mr. Christie, the chief 
assistant at Greenwich, writes :* — 
. “ Eoyal Observatory, Greenwich, Jan. 2, 1874. 
“ Sir, — In the absence of the Astronomer Eoyal, I beg to inform you that 
the evidence of the Spectroscope, as far as it goes, seems to confirm the 
supposed motion of the Solar System towards Hercules, but the inquiry is 
altogether one of a most delicate nature. There is nothing whatever to show 
that Alcyone is actually ‘ the centre of the Cosmos,’ all that can be stated 
is, that it appears probable that the centre of motion of the Solar System is 
somewhere in the direction of Alcyone. 
“ I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, 
“ Captain F . Petrie.” “ W. H. M. Christie.” 
I have also a letter from the Eadcliffe Observer at Oxford, who says : — 
“ Dear Sir, — I think that the Astronomical facts in the paper are given 
accurately and clearly ; but I think that the concession, in the first proposi- 
tion, is dangerous without a good deal more definition and explanation. 
“ I am, &c. 
“ Eobert Main.” 
I may add that Professor Pritchard has sent a letter of similar import.t 
* I have since received the following letter, dated 15th January, 1874, from 
the Astronomer Eoyal, Sir G. B. Airy : — “ In regard to Madler’s idea of the 
central function of the brightest star of the Pleiades, I do not think that 
there is any evidence for it : and that, I believe, is the opinion of astronomers 
in general. There is considerable (although not certain) evidence of the 
motion of our system in a definite direction, but I do not see any evidence 
of the revolving motion of it, or of any other stars distinctly round Alcyone 
or any other star.” — Ed. 
+ The Eev. Canon Birks, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge, 
writes to say that he can neither go with the author of the paper in the 
concession he makes in the first proposition (referring to the scientific 
inaccuracy of the Bible), nor in his attempted compensation resting on 
special correspondence between certain texts in the Bible and some modern 
scientific hypotheses ; he also adds : — “ The remark borrowed from me 
in section 15 is taken, I believe, from ‘ Modern Astronomy,’ written for 
the Tract Society about thirty years ago. I was led soon after to ex- 
