g SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY copies of the Astronomical
Observations made at Paramatta, to form a third part of the
Philosophical Transactions for 1829, whilst of the Observations made at
the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, two hundred and fifty copies only
are printed?

Of these seven hundred and fifty copies, seven hundred and ten will be
distributed to members of the Royal Society, to six hundred of whom they
will probably be wholly uninteresting or useless; and thus the country
incurs a constantly recurring annual expense. Nor is it easy to see
on what principle a similar destination could be refused for the
observations made at the Cape of Good Hope.]

To those who measure the question of the national encouragement of
science by its value in pounds, shillings, and pence, I will here state
a fact, which, although pretty generally known, still, I think, deserves
attention. A short time since it was discovered by government that the
terms on which annuities had been granted by them were erroneous, and
new tables were introduced by act of Parliament. It was stated at the
time that the erroneous tables had caused a loss to the country of
between two and three millions sterling. The fact of the sale of
those annuities being a losing concern was long known to many; and the
government appear to have been the last to be informed on the subject.
Half the interest of half that loss, judiciously applied to the
encouragement of mathematical science, would, in a few years, have
rendered utterly impossible such expensive errors.

To those who bow to the authority of great names, one remark may have
its weight. The MECANIQUE COELESTE, [The first volume of the first
translation of this celebrated work into our own language, has just
arrived in England from--America.] and the THEORIE ANALYTIQUE DES
PROBABILITES, were both dedicated, by Laplace, to Napoleon. During the
reign of that extraordinary man, the triumphs of France were as eminent
in Science as they were splendid in arms. May the institutions which
trained and rewarded her philosophers be permanent as the benefits they
have conferred upon mankind!

In other countries it has been found, and is admitted, that a knowledge
of science is a recommendation to public appointments, and that a man
does not make a worse ambassador because he has directed an observatory,
or has added by his discoveries to the extent of our knowledge of
animated nature. Instances even are not wanting of