through the outer coverings of the body, and inform him what was passing within. In the same discourse are praised two men, whose fame being evanescent, their merits would have required much of the tactus doctus to draw them from their dark abode' -a Dr Cartwright, who improved the pistons of steam engines, and a Mr Jordan, who, we believe, was agent of Barbadoes, and an amateur in optical matters. The habit of praising seems to be easily imbibed, and to overrun the whole composition of him who indulges in its sweets. So the discourse on delivering the medal to Mr Pond digresses into panegyrics upon his great predecessors-Halley and Bradley-which no one could have complained of, for their names stand among the highest in the annals of science; but Dr Maskelyne is associated with them- his ' was a kindred spirit to that of those illustrious philosophers' -for no other reason that we can discover, except that we ' remember him with so much respect and affection.' The eulogy upon Mr Pond, the successor of these eminent men, is sufficiently ample, and, we make no doubt, abundantly well deserved; but it closes with an exhortation somewhat awkwardly phrased, and at much variance with what went before; for after testifying no little gratitude for his five-and-twenty years' services, and bestowing the medal in token, as it were, of value

received,' we were naturally led to believe that the Astronomer Royal (whose appointment is avowed as the doing of the Society, and in return for his useful labours in the service) had already performed enough to establish his title as successor to the office; but the conclusion points to the future as the scene of his glory, and bids him endeavour to be worthy of having his name transmitted to future generations with those of your illustrious predecessors.'

The known rule of the Royal Society, which we have inscribed on every part of every volume of its Transactions, and to which, (says the half-yearly notice,) they will always adhere,' is, 'never to give their opinion as a body upon any subject, either of nature or art, that comes before them.' The Council, which is the executive power, we may well suppose still less presumes to sit in judgment on any scientific subject, except in the necessary discharge of its duties, the selection of papers for publication, and the awarding of prizes. We therefore regard the statement in the following passage as a strong proof of the Council's entire satisfaction with the accuracy of the observations at Greenwich, since the accession of the present distinguished Astronomer Royal. Nothing could have tempted the Council to depart from its wonted caution, and commit itself, if

we may so speak, by vouching for the correctness of the present observers, but a most implicit trust in their merits as observers, a trust, of course, grounded, not, like their opinion of Dr Maskelyne's spirit being akin to Halley's and Bradley's, upon feelings of personal respect and affection;' but upon actual verification in a number of instances-for surely, it is no mere matter of empty eulogy, or even of philosophic speculation, to avouch the accuracy of observations which are of such immense practical importance as those carried on at Greenwich. The Council must, therefore, have been aware that some such testimony was called for, possibly by rumours of errors in the nautical tables, which had gone forth. Such rumours must now be held as utterly groundless. I now present to you this 'medal as a token of the respect of the Society, and of the 'confidence of the Council in the great accuracy of your Observations.'-(p. 76.) Nor let it be said that this applies only to the observations last made by the Astronomer Royal on the Parallax question; for the medal is expressly adjudged to him, for his various papers and observations communicated to the • Royal Society;' (p. 66.) according to the modern practice of lumping together a number of Essays, when it is wished to give the medal to a person who has never produced any one of merit sufficiently prominent to deserve it-making bulk in some sort supply the place of value. But indeed, it should seem that the observations on the parallax controversy are rather excluded from the number of those to which the remarkable passage cited can apply; for it is expressly stated, (p. 70.) that, in awarding the medal, the Council do not at all mean to ex'press an opinion on this subject; when two such astronomers (Dr Brinkley and Mr Pond) differ, it would be presumptuous, and almost impossible for them to decide; it is, however, "highly satisfactory to know, that the question is now reduced within such very small limits, the difference between the Greenwich and Dublin observations generally amounting to 'less than a second;' and the same medal is, the very next year, awarded to Dr Brinkley, the antagonist observer, for his various communications, printed in the Philosophical Transactions. (p. 82.) So that the whole question being one of accuracy in the two observers and their instruments, the Council, in professing to hold the scales quite even between them, professes also not to decide in favour of the accuracy of Mr Pond's observations, as far as regards this controversy; therefore the marked expression of confidence in the great accuracy of Mr Pond's observations,' above cited, cannot possibly ap

ply to his late observations connected with the parallax of the fixed stars. We are the more anxious to set this matter on its right footing, because the testimony of the Council, if given to support the general correctness of the Greenwich observations, ought to have great weight, supposing always that body to be of competent ability and experience, and of unsuspected impartiality in its decisions; it is, or at least it ought to be, an authority from which there could hardly be an appeal; it ought to set at rest all cavil and allay all doubts. If, on the other hand, the decision has been hastily come to, for the purpose of putting down (as the late President would have said) all opposition-or if the Council are a less learned, a less purely scientific, a more political body than they were wont to be in olden times-then the point is possibly not yet determined, although the decision has been pronounced. At all events, the Astronomer Royal is no longer singly answerable to the public; he is primarily responsible, no doubt, as the observer, but he has good sureties; his bondsmen are the Council of the Royal Society, and they, having volunteered their liability, must stand or fall by the result.

In awarding the prize of the following year to Dr Brinkley, the President enters somewhat at length, and with much propriety and great distinctness of statement, into the controversy more than once alluded to in this article. Our scientific readers are aware that Dr Brinkley, as far back as 1810, communicated to the Royal Society a very short notice of his observations upon the star a Lyre; they were made with the eight feet circle of the Dublin observatory, and were 47 in number, 22 being made in opposition, and 25 in conjunction; and all these comparisons between the direction of the instrument at opposite points of the earth's orbit, agreed in showing a want of parallelism, and the mean angle, or the parallax, was found to be 2.52.-Philosophical Transactions, 1810, p. 204. This certainly indicated a much smaller distance than had been assumed or suspected by astronomers for any of the fixed stars. Dr Bradley satisfied himself by many observations, that the annual parallax of y Draconis was not equal to 1", (Philosophical Transactions, 1728, p. 637;) and Mr Michell thought Sirius himself, the nearest of them, in all probability, not more than 1".-(Philosophical Transactions, 1767, p. 234.) Accordingly, Dr Brinkley's parallax has been doubted by other astronomers, and Mr Pond has denied it altogether. His argument is, that in proportion to the inaccuracy of the instruments employed, astronomers have been always led to believe they had discovered a parallax;

and that the instrument at Greenwich, the most perfect of all, shows none that is sensible to his observation, and he concludes, that if it exist at all, it cannot exceed a very small fraction of a second. Dr Brinkley repeated his observations; he tried other means of discovering the inaccuracy, if any, of his instrument; he certainly showed that the result of divers observations made on eighty-seven days, in thirteen summer solstices, proved it at least to be consistent with itself, and he found that the parallax of a Lyre was sensible in no less than 262 observations. He also found a parallax in some other stars.

It must be observed, that he now makes larger allowances for aberration and solar nutation, which bring down the parallax, as evinced by the mean of his numerous observations, to 1".14, for a Lyra. It is not unnatural in him, then, to ask, if this constant result is the effect of imperfection in the instrument used, why should not the same cause show a sensible parallax in one star and not in another? Why so considerable a parallax in a Lyra, and none in the Pole star, or in y Draconis, in which we have observed that Dr Bradley had found a parallax of a second, or nearly so?

γ

In commenting upon this scientific controversy, it gives us real pleasure to observe the testimony borne by the President to the perfectly amicable and dignified temper with which it has been carried on by both the distinguished disputants; a candour every way worthy of the men and the subject, but removed far above the comprehension of little minds. Mr Pond, to his very great honour, we are told, was the member of council who first proposed to bestow the prize-medal upon his antagonist in 1824 ; thus at once sacrificing the sort of preference which might otherwise have appeared to be given by the previous award in his own favour, and relying wholly for the acceptance of his doctrines upon their intrinsic merits.

The prize of 1825 is justly and liberally bestowed upon a celebrated foreigner, a Fellow of the Society, Mr Arago of Paris, for his discovery in Magnetism, by which he has shown that all metals, as well as iron, though in a less degree, and more transiently, are subject to the action of this singular and important fluid; and giving us ground to expect that the law will be extended to other substances. The subjects of Galvanism and Magnetism, and their union, electro-magnetism, have lately made such rapid advances, especially among the Philosophers of the Continent, that while we lament the disproportion of our own contributions to this brilliant harvest of discovery, we cannot avoid thanking the council of the Society for showing, by their

award in Mr Arago's favour, that they deem Science to be of no country. The following remarks on this topic are at once enlightened and ingenious. Truly we may be said to have outlived the day when it was thought loyal and orthodox to decry everything French, and when the literary creatures of a wretched government filled their periodical publications with attacks alike laboured and empty, upon those sublime geniuses of the neighbouring nation, who have never been outshone, except by Sir Isaac Newton himself.

In transmitting (says Sir Humphry Davy, addressing Mr South,) this medal to Mr Arago, assure him of the interest we take in his ingenious and important researches, and inform him that we wait with impatience for the continuation of his labours on this new and fertile subject. As one of our Fellows, his discoveries have the same interest for us that they have for his brethren of the Royal Academy of Sciences, which, for more than a century and a half, has gone on encouraging and emulating our labours. You and our worthy secretary* are recent examples of liberality on their part, and of the respect paid to British talent; we, I trust, shall never be behind them in dignity and nobleness of sentiment; far be from us that narrow policy which would contract the minds of individuals, and injure the interest of nations by cold and exclusive selfishness; which would raise the greatness of one people by lowering the standard of that of another. As in Commerce, so in Science, no country can become worthily preeminent, except in profiting by the wants, resources, and wealth of its neighbours. Every new discovery may be considered as a new species of manufacture, awakening moral industry and sagacity, and employing, as it were, new capital of mind. When Newton developed the system of the universe, and established his own glory and that of the country, on imperishable foundations, he might be regarded as giving. a boon to the civilized world, for which no adequate compensation could ever be made; yet even in this, the most difficult and sublime field of discovery, Britain has been paid, if not fully, yet fairly, by the labours of Eüler, La Grange, and above all, La Place; perfecting the theory of the lunar motions and planetary perturbations, and affording data of infinite importance in the theory and practice of navigation. Fortunately Science, like that nature to which it belongs, is neither limited by time nor by space. It belongs to the world, and is of no country and no age. The more we know, the more we feel our ignorance, the more we feel how much remains unknown; and in philosophy, the sentiment of the Macedonian hero can never apply; there are always new worlds to conquer.'

The British Mathematician, who beyond all dispute has approached the nearest to the Eülers, the La Granges, and the La

* Mr Herschel.