224 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
one side a permanent device, and on the other a portrait of the indivi¬ 
dual to whom it is given, with an inscription containing his name, and 
the reason why the medal was awarded. A certain number of copies of 
each Medal should he sent by the Academy to royal and public cabinets 
at home and abroad, and the remainder sold to Members and to the public. 
A single copy in silver to be given to the person who receives the medal, 
but no gold impression to be taken. 
The advantages of this system are, that it spreads at once the fame 
both of the Academy and of the individuals distinguished by the Medals. 
Collectors will look eagerly for them; a series of them will be preserved 
in every public cabinet, and in all the principal private collections; and 
the money now spent uselessly in the purchase of gold will be expended 
in the encouragement of art, inasmuch as every Medal given must have 
a new and peculiar die sunk for it. 
To return, however, from this digression to the proper business of 
this meeting. 
The Medals now about to be given ought, strictly speaking, to have 
been given last year; but the death of our Treasurer, the late Dr. Ball, 
and some private matters connected with our finances, induced the Council 
to postpone the delivery of them until now; and I am glad that these 
accidents are attended with at least one good result, that we are now 
honoured by the presence of the distingui shed nobleman who so worthily 
represents her most sacred Majesty in this country. 
In consequence of the interval that has elapsed since the last distri¬ 
bution of these Prizes, the Council have resolved to give four on the pre¬ 
sent occasion, two in the department of Science, one in that of Polite 
Literature, and one in Antiquities. 
On the recommendation of the Committee of Science, the Medals have 
been awarded to Edward J. Cooper, Esq., M. P., of Markree Castle, for 
his “ Catalogue of Ecliptic Stars;” and to the Bev. George Salmon, for 
his researches on the “ Geometry of Plane Curves.” 
On the recommendation of the Committee of Polite Literature, a 
Medal is adjudged to the Eev. Dr. Wall, for his important work on the 
“ Ancient Orthography of the Jews, and the Present State of the Text 
of the Hebrew Bible.” 
On tho recommeudation of the Committee of Antiquities, the Bev. 
Dr. Beeves is to receive a Medal for his new edition of Adamnan’s 
“ Life of St. Columba.” 
It will be necessary for me to give you some little account of the 
works to which we have thus awarded our highest mark of approbation. 
I. Much importance has of late years been attached by astronomers 
to the formation of catalogues and charts of stars in the vicinity of the 
ecliptic, the region of the planetary movements. The fixed points, 
whose positions are thus determined and mapped, not only serve as 
points of reference for the places of the moving bodies of our system, 
but they afford also most important facilities for the discovery of new 
planets. They enable us to determine the variation in the position of a 
moving body, by a simple micrometrical measurement, or even by ocular 
