286 Proceedings of the British Association for 1850. 



advantages would accrue to science from the active use of a 

 large reflecting telescope in the southern hemisphere, they 

 resolved to petition Government for a grant of money for 

 that purpose. The Royal Society readily agreed to second 

 this application ; and as no request from this Association has 

 ever been refused, whatever Government was in power, we 

 have every reason to expect a favourable answer to a memo- 

 rial from the pen of Dr Robinson, which has just been sub- 

 mitted to the Minister. A recent and noble act of liberality 

 to science on the part of the Government justifies this ex- 

 pectation. It is, I believe, not yet generally known that 

 Lord John Russell has granted £1000 a-year to the Royal 

 Society for promoting scientific objects. The Council of that 

 distinguished body has been very solicitous to make this 

 grant effective in promoting scientific objects, and I am per- 

 suaded that the measures they have adopted are well fitted 

 to justify the liberality of the Government. One of the most 

 important of these has been to place £100 at the disposal of 

 the committee of the Kew Observatory. This establishment, 

 which has for several years been supported by the British 

 Association, was given to us by the Government as a depo- 

 sitory for our books and instruments, and as a locality well 

 fitted for carrying on electrical, magnetical, and meteorolo- 

 gical observations. During the last six years the Observa- 

 tory has been under the honorary superintendence of Mr 

 Ronalds, who is well known to the scientific world for his 

 ingenious photographic methods of constructing self-regis- 

 tering magnetical and meteorological apparatus. On the 

 joint application of the Marquis of Northampton and Sir 

 John Herschel, Her Majesty's Government have granted 

 to Mr Ronalds a pecuniary recompense of £250 for 

 these inventions; and I am glad to be able to state, that 

 Mr Brooke has also received from them a suitable reward 

 for inventions of a similar kind. Under the fostering 

 care of the British Association, the most valuable electrical 

 observations have been made at Kew, and Mr Ronalds 

 has continued, from year to year, to make those improve- 

 ments upon his apparatus which experience never fails to 

 suggest ; — but I regret to say that, in consequence of our 

 diminished resources, the Association, at its meeting in 1848, 



