n in the vigour of youth. Nor would
a superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, if he made a point of being
acquainted with every thing connected with his subject, find his
situation at all a sinecure. Slight as are the duties of the Foreign
Secretary of the Royal Society, it might have been supposed that Mr.
Brande would scarcely, amongst his multifarious avocations, have found
time even for them. But it may be a consolation to him to know, that
from the progress the Society is making, those duties must become
shortly, if they are not already, almost extinct.

Doubtless the President, in making that appointment, looked most
anxiously over the list of the Royal Society. He doubtless knew that the
Academics of Sweden, of Denmark, of Scotland, of Prussia, of
Hanover, and of France, derived honour from the discoveries of their
Secretaries;--that they prided themselves in the names of Berzelius, of
Oersted, of Brewster, of Encke, of Gauss, and of Cuvier. Doubtless the
President must have been ambitious that England should contribute to
this galaxy of glory, that the Royal Society should restore the lost
Pleiad [Pleiades, an assemblage of seven stars in the neck of the
constellation Taurus. There are now only six of them visible to the
naked eye.--HUTTON'S DICTIONARY--Art. Pleiades.] to the admiring science
of Europe. But he could discover no kindred name amongst the ranks of
his supporters, and forgot, for a moment, the interest of the Society,
in an amiable consideration for the feelings of his surrounding friends.
For had the President chosen a brighter star, the lustre of his other
officers might have been overpowered by its splendour: but relieved
from the pain of such a contrast, he may still retain the hope, that,
by their united brightness, these suns of his little system shall yet
afford sufficient light to be together visible to distant nations, as a
faint NEBULA in the obscure horizon of English science.

SECTION 6. OF THE FUNDS OF THE SOCIETY.

Although the Society is not in a state approaching to poverty, it may be
useful to offer a few remarks respecting the distribution of its money.

EXPENSE OF ENGRAVINGS FOR SIR E. HOME'S PAPERS.--The great expense
of the engravings which adorn the volumes of the Philosophical
Transactions, is not sufficiently known. That many of those engravings
are quite essential for the papers they illustrate, and that those
papers are fit for the Transactions, I do not doubt; but