386 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



they are changed, and draw it after them. This is the same ex- 

 planation in effect as that of MM. Herschel and Babbage. 



Experiments made with care to determine the influence of the 

 velocity and the distance of the discs, indicated that the angles 

 of deviation, and not their sines, augmented proportionally with 

 the velocity, at least, within certain limits, and that the sines of 

 the angles of deviation increased in an inverse ratio of the power 

 2-f$ of the distance. They were careful to employ, in this deter- 

 mination, discs having diameters very great in comparison to 

 the length of the needle. — Bib. Univ. xxix. 316. 



10. On the Formation of a Society for the Cultivation of Naval 

 Architecture. — It is remarkable in a country which owes its opu- 

 lence to commerce, and its political power to its naval superiority, 

 that no association among the learned should exist, for the pur- 

 pose of cultivating, in an especial manner, the important subject 

 of naval architecture ; and the circumstance is the more to be 

 wondered at, from the establishment of philosophical societies 

 forming so striking and peculiar a characteristic of the age. 



There are so many advantages to be derived from the co-opera- 

 tion of numbers' in the prosecution of scientific pursuits, — advan- 

 tages first pointed out by the prophetic mind of Lord Bacon, and 

 which experience has in every way confirmed, that it would be 

 regarded as an unnecessary waste of words, to attempt, at the 

 present time, to advance any new arguments in favour of a sys- 

 tem, which has tended in so splendid and triumphant a way, to 

 ennoble and dignify the exertions of man. 



At the present moment, besides the Royal Society, which may 

 be said to embrace the whole range of the physical sciences, we 

 have societies devoted to the exclusive cultivation of particular 

 departments of natural- knowledge, such as the Geological Society, 

 the Astronomical Society, fyc. Now there is perhaps no subject 

 which requires more essentially the aid and co-operation of num- 

 bers than naval architecture, involving as it does, so extensive a 

 field for inquiry, and so beset as all its elements are with diffi- 

 culties of so peculiar and intricate a kind. At the present mo- 

 ment there is a spirit of inquiry abroad respecting ship-building, 

 which no antecedent period ever exhibited ; and which, if taken 

 at the flood, and before the causes that have awakened it again 

 subside, must produce consequences of a very important kind. 

 What seems to be wanting, is a sort of focus, or common point of 

 union, to rally the disjointed and insulated speculations now afloat 

 respecting it, and to concentrate the efforts of those who feel 

 interested in its advancement. This might be most readily and 

 effectually done, by instituting a society ; the object of which 

 should be, to encourage theoretical and experimental inquiries, 



