176 
[579 
579. 
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY [PROFESSOR CAYLEY AS] THE 
PRESIDENT [OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY] 
ON PRESENTING THE GOLD MEDAL OF THE SOCIETY TO 
PROFESSOR SIMON NEWCOMB. 
[From the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. xxxiv. (1873—1874), 
pp. 224—233.] 
The Council have awarded the medal to Professor Simon Newcomb for his 
Researches on the Orbits of Neptune and Uranus, and for his other contributions to 
mathematical astronomy. And upon me, as President, the duty has devolved of explaining 
to you the grounds of their decision. 
I think it right to remark that it appears to me that, in the award of their 
highest honour, the Council of a Society are not bound to institute a comparison 
between heterogeneous branches of a science, or classes of research—to weigh, for 
instance, mathematical against observational astronomy or astronomical physics; or, in 
the several branches respectively, the happy idea which originates a theory against the 
patience and the skilled labour which develope and carry it out; and still less to decide 
between the merits of different workers in the science. It is enough that the different 
branches of a science coming before them in different years, the medal should in 
every case be bestowed as a recognition of high merit in some important branch of 
the science. 
Before speaking of the Tables, I will notice some of Professor Newcomb’s other 
works. 
Memoir “On the secular Variations and mutual Relations of the Orbits of the 
Asteroids,” Mem. American Academy, vol. v. (1860), pp. 124—152. The object is to 
examine those circumstances of the forms, positions, variations, and general relations of 
the asteroid orbits which may serve as a test, complete or imperfect, of any hypothesis 
respecting the cause from which they originated, or the reason why they are in a