Council of the Royal Society should adopt their opinion so heedlessly, and maintain it so pertinaciously, was as cruel to the observer as it was injurious to the interests of science.
It might have been imagined that such praises, together with the Copley medal, presented to Captain Sabine by the Royal Society, and the medal of Lalande, given to him by the Institute of France, had arisen from such a complete investigation of his observations, as should place them beyond the reach even of criticism. But, alas! the Royal Society may write, and nobody will attend; its medals have lost their lustre; and even the Institute of France may find that theirs cannot confer immortality. That learned body is in the habit of making most interesting and profound reports on any memoirs communicated to it; nothing escapes the penetration of their committees appointed for such purposes. Surely, when they enter on the much more important subject of the award of a medal, unusual pains must be taken with the previous report, and it might, perhaps, be of some advantage to science, and might furnish their admirers with arguments in their defence, if they would pubblish that on which the decree of their Lalande's medal to Captain Sabine was founded.
