The Sun.
London, England, 1837-12-28 00:00:00

PORATE

LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING. DECEMBER 28, 1837.

ROYAL SOCIETY.

ADDRESS OP HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUKE OP SUSSEX, TUT:
PRESIDENT, DELIVERED AT THE LAST ANNIVERSARY MEETING.
GENTLEMEN,—When I last had the honour of addressing
you from this Chair, I ventured to express a hope that th •
happy restoration of my sight, and the continued posaessien
of health, would have enabled me to discharge, with becoming
regularity, the duties of President of this Society during those
portions of the year in which I am generally resident in Lon-
don : the fulfilment, however, of that hope was unhappily
frustrated by a long and dangerous illness, which confined me
for several months to my apartments, and from the effects of
which I have hardly yet entirely recovered. I trust, Gentle-
men, you will pardoa me if I look forward with brighter hopes
to the prospects of another year • and if I hesitate to regard
the unhappy experience of that Which is past as a premonition
of the fate which awaits me in those which are to come ; it
such were my assurance or reasonable fear, I should acquiesce
in the duty and propriety of at once retiring from this chair.
and of no longer soliciting the renewal of an honour which I have
enjoyed for so many years ; but if it should be the pleasure of
that good Providence, whose chastisements and whose mercies
I have so often before experienced, to disable me from presid-
ing over this Seciety in such a manner as might be considered
necessary for the protection and maintenance of its just in-
terests and dignity, I should bow with humble resignation to
the expression of His and resign into other hands the
discharge of those duties for which I should feel myself no
longer qualified.
Since the last Annual Session of this Society, we have lost,
Gentlemen, a most munificent patron and benefactor, by the
demise, of our late Most Gracious Sovereign, King William
the Fourth, of whom it is difficult for me to speak in terms
which do justice to my feelings. He was, indeed, not less
distinguished by the exalted station which he filled, than by
the warmth and sincerity of his affections as a husband, a
brothel; and a friend; by the undisguised frankness and truth
of h's character as a man ; and as a monarch, by his patrio-
tic zeal to increase the efficiency and secure the permanence
of the great institutions of his country, and to extend to all
classes of his subjects the blessings of peace and knowledge,
and the protection of just and equal laws. I would gladly en-
large, if the time or the occasion would permit me to do so,
upon these and many other virtues in the character of one who
was so closely connected with me by the ties of relationship
and duty ; but I am quite sure that I should fail in the expres-
sion both of your sentiments and my own, if I did not ac-
knowledge, in terms of respect and gratitude, the especial pa-
tronage and protection which he extended to the Royal So-
ciety, by the renewed grant of the two annual medals which
had been instituted by his Royal brother and predecessor, and
by the enactment of such statutes for their distribution as
appeared to him best calculated to stimulate the exertions of
philosophers, and to associate for ever the results of their la-
bours with the publication of the transactions of the Royal
Society.
The Council availed themselves of the earliest opportunity
which the resumption of their meetings allowed, to present,
in the name of the Fellows of the Royal Society, the homage
of their loyalty and devotion to the person and throne of the
illustrious Princess who now wields the sceptre of this great
empire ; and they ventured at the same time time to express a
hoi e that her Majesty would be graciously pleased, in confor-
mity with the practice of her predecessors, to sign her Royal
name in our Register as Patroness of our Society, and that
that she would likewise continue to us the annual grant of the
two Medals which had been made by King George the Fourth
and King William the Fourth.
This Address has been presented to her Majesty, who has
been graciously pleased to signify to me, through the Secre-
tary of State, that she is most sensible of the loyalty and at-
tachment expressed in it, and that she cordially joins in the
wish of the Royal Society that her reign may be distinguished
by the triumphs of the arts of peace, and by the general dif-
fusion and advancement of religion and knowledge amongst
all classes of her subjects. Her Majesty was further graciously
pleased to intimate that she would have great satisfaction in
becoming the Patroness of the Royal Society, and that she
would annually place at their disposal two gold medals, and
would continue to extend to them the same protection and
patronage which they had received from her Royal prede-
cessors.
I feel proud, Gentlemen, in being able to communicate to
you these gracions assurances of support and protection from
our Patroness and Queen, which are well calculated to con-
firm, though they cannot increase, the loyal and devoted at-
tachment which we feel to her person ; and I trust that I shall
be able, at no distant period, to announce to you that her Ma-
jesty bas signed her Royal name in our register, as Patroness
of the Royal Society.
I now proceed to notice some of the more important events
connected with the administration of the Royal Society during
the last year.
One of the Royal medals has been adjudged to Mr. Whewell
for his very valuable series of researches on the tides, which have
been published in our Transactions, chiefly during the last three
years. I must refer you, Gentiemcn,tora statement of the grounds
upon which this decision has been founded to the more
detailed reports of the Council, which will be read to
you by your Secretary Dr. Roget ; but I gladly avail myself
of this opportunity of expressing my respect for the great
talents and varied attainments of the distinguished philoso-
pher upon whom this mark of honour has been conferred. If
I regard him as occupied with the highest and most important
practical duties connected with our system of academical edu-
cation, and in providing and arranging the materials by which
it is conducted, or the principles upon which it should be
based, he will be found in the foremost rank of those whose la-
bours do not deserve the less honour because they commonly
absorb the entire time and attention of those who are engaged
in them, and thus close up the avenue to those distinctions
which are almost exclusively confined to great discoveries
in science, or to important productions in literature.
When I read his essays on the architecture of the middle ages,
on subjects of general literature, or on moral and meta-
physical philosophy, exhibiting powers of mind so various
in their application, and so refined and cultivated in
their character, I feel inclined to forget the profound
historian of science in the accomplished man of letters,
or the learned amateur of art ; but it is in his last and highest
vocation, whilst tracing the causes which have advanced or
checked the progress of the inductive sciences from the first
dawn of philosophy in Greece, to their mature development
in the nineteenth century ; or in pointing out the marks of
design of an all-wise and all-powerful Providence in the
greatest of those works and operations of nature which our
senses or our knowledge can comprehend or explain, that I
recognise the productions of one of those superior minds
which are accustomed to exercise a powerful and lasting in-
fldence upon the intellectual character and speculations of the
age in which they flourish.
It is now three years since the Royal medal was adjudged
to Mr. Lubbock for his researches on the tides; and the
Council have availed themselves of the first opportunity
which was presented by the recurrence of the cycle of the
subjects, which are successively entitled to the Royal medals,
to make a similar award to his colleague and fellow labourer
in this very interesting and important series of investigations.
It is not for me to attempt to balance the relative claims and
merits, in connection with this subject, of these two very emi-
nent philosophers ; it is quite sufficient to remark that the first
who ventured to approach this difficult and long neglected in-
quiry was the first also who was selected for honour ; but I
have long noticed with equal pride and satisfaction the per-
fect harmony with which they have carried on their co-ordi-
nate labours, apparently indifferent to every object but the
attainment of truth, and altogether superior to those jea-
lousies which too frequently present themselves amongst
rival and contemporaneous labourers in the same departments
of science.
I regret to observe that the second Royal Medal for the
present year has not been awarded, and that it has conse-
quently lapsed to the executors of his late Majesty. It
was proposed that it eh mid be given to the best Memoir
presented to the Royal Society between the years 1834 and
1837, containing " Contributions towards a system of Geo-
logical Chronology, founded upon an examination of Fossil
Remains and their attendant Phmnomena ;" a subject of the
greatest interest, and also of the greatest delicacy, from its
connexion with those agitating topics which the specula-
tions of philosophers are compelled to approach, though
they may not always venture to decide. I should have
rejoiced to have seen in the Transactions of the Royal
Society a record of the opinions of a Buckland or a Scdg-
wick upon a theme which is so worthy of the application of
their highest powers; and I trust that, though its announce-
meut as a Prize Question has failed to secure, within the
prescribed period, the accomplishment of the object proposed
by it, it will still have done some service to the cause of sci-
ence by exciting the attention of geologists in such a man-
ner as may sooner or later lead to a definite and philoso-
phical exposition of their views ,on a subject of so much im-
portance.
Those who have attended to the tidal researches of Mr.
Whowell, must be aware how much light has been thrown
upon the character and course of the phenomena of the tides,
by the simultaneous observations, under his instructions,
which were in the month of June, 1834 and 1835, at nearly
five hundred stations of the Coast Guard Service in Great
Britain and Ireland, and simultaneously with the latter also
at more than one hundred stations in America, Spain, Por-
tugal, France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Norway.
These observations were undertaken by the authority, or
through the influence of the Government of this country, which
likewise most promptly and liberally furnished the requisite
funds and assistance for reducing the observations in such
a manner as was requisite for deducing general conclusions
from them, a labour much too extensive and costly to be under-
taken by any single individual. I gladly seize this opportu-
nity of bearing testimony, occupying as I do the highest
scientific station in this country, to the readiness which the
Lords of the Treasury and the Admiralty have shown on this
and on every other occasion to forward scientific inquiries, and
particularly such as are connected with the advancement of
astronomy and navigation. They have granted funds for re-
ducing and publishing the Planetary Observations at Green-
wich, the valuable and extensive series of observations of the
late Mr. Groombridge, for repeating upon an adequate scale

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