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، March, April, and May are the Autumn months; June, July, and August, the Winter; September, October, and November, the Spring; December, January, and February, the Summer. The Spring months were unusually cold and tempestuous."

The Vice-President read a letter from M. Leverrier, in acknowledgment of Mr. Bond's observations upon the new planet; and also one from Professor Liebig, giving an account of his recent researches upon the composition of flesh.

A communication from Professor Daubeny was read, conveying an invitation to the meeting of the British Association for the Promotion of Science, to be held at Oxford, on the 23d of June.

The Treasurer's report, accompanied by the Auditor's certificate, was received and read.

Professor Edward Robinson, of New York, and Professor Charles C. Jewett, of Brown University, were elected Corresponding Members of the Academy.

Professor Eben N. Horsford, of Cambridge, Horace Gray, Esq., of Boston, and John C. Lee, Esq., of Salem, were elected Fellows.

The American Antiquarian Society was invited to use the Academy's room for such of its meetings as are held in Boston. At the annual election, the following gentlemen were chosen officers for the ensuing year, namely: —

JACOB BIGELOWw, M. D., . . President.

Hon. EDWARD EVERETT,

ASA GRAY,

Vice-President.

Corresponding Secretary.

OLIVER W. HOLMES, M. D., Recording Secretary.

J. INGERSOLL BOWDITCH,.. Treasurer.

A. A. GOULD, M. D., . . . . Librarian and Cabinet-Keeper. The standing committees were appointed by the chair, as

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Two hundred and ninety-seventh Meeting.

August 11, 1847. — QUARTERLY MEETING.

The PRESIDENT in the chair.

The Corresponding Secretary laid on the table an engraved portrait of the late Professor DE CANDOLLE, a Foreign Honorary Member of the Academy, presented by his son, Prof. Alphonse De Candolle, of Geneva. On motion of the Vice-President, it was gratefully accepted, and ordered to be placed in a frame.

The following gentlemen were elected Foreign Honorary Members of the Academy, viz. :

The Rev. Dr. Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

M. U. J. Leverrier, of Paris.

John C. Adams, Esq., Fellow and Tutor of St. John's College, Cambridge University.

The following gentlemen were chosen Fellows of the Academy, viz. :

Hon. Samuel A. Eliot, of Boston.

Benjamin A. Gould, jr., of Boston.

George P. Bond, Assistant at the Observatory, Cambridge. Mr. Everett stated, that, as President of the University, he felt it his duty, on behalf of the Corporation, to embrace the earliest opportunity of formally acquainting the Academy that the great telescope ordered for the Observatory at Cambridge had arrived in good order in all parts, and had been successfully mounted. The object-glass was received in November last, and the other portions a short time since. The delicate and somewhat difficult task of mounting and adjusting this very large instrument had been performed with great expedition and skill by Mr. Bond and his son, the Director and Assistant Observer. Mr. Everett felt bound to make this statement to the Academy, and to accompany it with the renewed acknowledgments of the Corporation for the very liberal subscription of the Academy to the fund for purchasing the telescope. This subscription, amounting to three thou

sand dollars, was not only in itself of the greatest importance, but had been still more useful from having been tendered at the earliest stage of the enterprise, and when its success was uncertain. He further stated, that, although the instrument had been but for a very short time in operation, its performance was such as to warrant the belief, that it fully came up to the conditions of the order under which its manufacture was undertaken by Messrs. Merz and Mahler, which were, that it should be as good as any instrument of its class in the world.

Mr. Everett then read the following letter from Mr. Bond, the Director, furnishing some information in detail as to the performance of the instrument in reference to test objects.

"DEAR SIR:

"Observatory at Cambridge, 26 July, 1847.

"I take great pleasure in complying with the request you made, during your last visit to the Observatory, that I should prepare for you a brief account of the large refracting telescope which has recently been placed within its walls.

"The construction of this instrument was intrusted to the eminent opticians and mechanicians, Messrs. Merz and Mahler, of Munich, in Bavaria, the successors of the celebrated Frauenhofer. By the terms of the contract, they bound themselves to make for us a telescope equal in dimensions to the one at Pulkova, and of the best quality they were able to produce. We received the object-glass of this telescope in November, 1846. The tube and machinery arrived on the 11th of last month. We had prepared for the support of this instrument a stone pier, composed of massive blocks of granite, resting on a bed of hydraulic cement, made with coarse gravel, which forms a mass almost as solid as the stone itself. The substratum is fine gravel mixed with sand. The diameter of the pier is twenty feet at the base, and ten feet at the top. In form it is the frustum of a cone, and is surmounted by a single block of granite, two feet in thickness and ten feet in diameter, weighing fourteen tons. On this rests the stone pedestal, eleven feet high, weighing about nine tons, to which are attached the bed-plate of the hour-axis and framework of the telescope. Five hundred tons of granite were employed in constructing this pier. "The hour-circle of the instrument is eighteen inches in diameter, and reads by two verniers to single seconds of time in right ascension.

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