ADDRESS BY MR. MURCHISON. XXxiU 



doubtless that attention will be 2)aid to our recommendations which they 

 have already begun to receive. Wisely cautious and reserved in exertino- 

 its influence, tlie Association has hitherto made but few applications to 

 the government. Besides those to which we have before referred, and 

 which were immediately complied with, another was made regarding 

 the slow progi-ess of the ti'igonometrical surveys of England and Scot- 

 land : the latter probably owes its recent acceleration to the attention 

 thus first drawn to the subject, subsequently reinforced by a deputation 

 from the Royal Society of Scotland ; but the survey of England, 

 which, having commenced nearly half a century ago, has not yet 

 reached the Trent, is still in abeyance ; and these northern districts in 

 which we are assembled, and which comprise so large a part of the 

 staple riches of the country, continue without their due share of the 

 advantages which would attend its execution. There have been like- 

 wise two other national objects on which the Association has expressed 

 its opinion ; the one being the establishment of a magnetical observa- 

 tory in Great Britain, the other an expedition for the purpose of making 

 magnetical observations in the Antarctic seas. For the attainment of 

 the former of these objects no interference was found necessary, an 

 arrangement every way satisfactory being determined upon for con- 

 necting it with the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, on the recommen- 

 dation of the Board of Visitors. The iJublication, in the present volume 

 of our Transactions, of an elaborate report on the variations of the mag- 

 netic intensity of the earth, (unquestionably one of the most valuable 

 which has hitherto appeared in them, whether we consider the labo- 

 rious reductions it has required, or the important conclusions to which 

 they lead,) recals our attention to the latter point. The subject is one 

 of such deep interest, that we hope we shall not be thought to trespass 

 too much on the time of the meeting, if we repeat some of Major 

 Sabine's remarks upon it in his own words : — 



" I have already adverted to what the influence of the Association 

 may effect, in causing the spaces yet vacant on the map, in the British 

 possessions in India and Canada, to be filled. But beyond all compa- 

 rison, the most important service of this kind, which this or any other 

 country could render to this branch of science, would be by filling the 

 void still existing in the southern hemisphere, and particularly in the 

 vicinity of those parts of that hemisphere which are of principal mag- 

 netic interest. This can only be accomplished by a naval voyage ; for 

 which it is natural that other countries should look to England. That 

 the nations that have made exertions in the same cause do look to 

 England for it, cannot be better shown than by the following extract 

 of a letter of M. Hansteen's, which I take the liberty of introducing 

 here, both for this purpose, and because it expresses in so pleasing a 

 manner the praise that is so justly due to his own country, and which 



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