ncil of the Royal Society, for April 6, 1826,
with reference to the Assistants necessary for the two mural circles,
we find a letter from Mr. Pond on the subject, from which the following
passage is extracted:

"But to carry on such investigations, I want indefatigable,
hard-working, and above all, obedient drudges (for so I must call
them, although they are drudges of a superior order), men who will be
contented to pass half their day in using their hands and eyes in the
mechanical act of observing, and the remainder of it in the dull process
of calculation."]

Such being the distinction between the merits of these inquiries, some
difference ought to exist in the nature of any rewards that may be
proposed for their encouragement. The Royal Society have never marked
this difference, and consequently those: honorary medals which are given
to observations, gain a value which is due to those that are given for
discoveries; whilst these latter are diminished in their estimation by
such an association.

I have stated this distinction, because I think it a just one; but the
public would have little cause of complaint if this were the only ground
of objection to the mode of appropriating the Society's medals. The
first objection to be noticed, is the indistinct manner in which the
object for which the medals are awarded is sometimes specified. A medal
is given to A. B. "for his various papers."

There are cases, few perhaps in number, where such a reason may be
admissible; but it is impossible not to perceive the weakness of those
who judge these matters legibly written in the phrase, "and for his
various other communications," which comes in as the frequent tail-piece
to these awards. With a diffidence in their own powers, which might be
more admired if it were more frequently expressed, the Council think to
escape through this loop-hole, should the propriety of their judgment
on the main point be called in question. Thus, even the discovery which
made chemistry a science, has attached to it in their award this feeble
appendage.

It has been objected to the Royal Society, that their medals have been
too much confined to a certain set. When the Royal medals were added to
their patronage, the past distribution of the Copley medals, furnished
grounds to some of the journals to predict the future possessors of
the new ones. I shall, doubtless, be told that the Council of the Royal
Society are persons of such high feeling, t