X FOURTH REPORT — 1834. 



French Institute, a name which the meeting well knew was not 

 inferior in scientific reputation to any in Europe. To meet with 

 such men, to breathe the same atmosphere with them, to partake 

 the same sentiments, to enjoy their conversation, and to gain, 

 he hoped, their friendship, these were among the highest privi- 

 leges which such unions bestowed. 



If he were to be asked what the power is which this Associa- 

 tion peculiarly applies to the advancement of science, he would 

 answer, — the power of combination : how feeble is man for any 

 purpose when he stands alone, how strong when united with his 

 fellow-men ! It might be true, perhaps, that the greatest philo- 

 sophical works have been achieved in privacy ; but it is no less 

 true that those works would never have been accomplished if 

 their authors had not mingled with men of similar pursuits, and 

 availed tliemselves of their assistance. To such a commerce of 

 ideas they haA^e often been indebted for the germs of their ap- 

 parently insulated discoveries, and without such mutual aid they 

 would seldom have been able to carry their investigations to any 

 valuable conclusion. Even in the highest departments of philo- 

 sophical reasoning, when a question of fact arises, when a point 

 of experiment is reached, the greatest masters of analysis are 

 obliged to call in the cooperation of other labourers, and to wait 

 for the observations of experimental men. 



The manner in which the power of combination is brought 

 into action by these meetings might, in some measure, be col- 

 lected from the results which had sprung out of the proceedings 

 of the last meeting. A discussion, for instance, had then taken 

 place on the subject of the aurora borealis, and measures were 

 adopted for promoting the investigation of the circumstances 

 connected with that remarkable phaenomenon. Soon afterwards 

 a beautiful arch appeared across the heavens ; it was simulta- 

 neously observed by diflferent members of the Association at 

 distant points ; and thus elements were furnished for a compu- 

 tation of its height. Again, observations of great value had 

 long since been made at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich 

 by Bradley and Maskelyne : these had lain till now unreduced, 

 like unwrought ore, or raw materials for a valuable manufacture 

 not worked up ; and they might still have continued useless and 

 lost to science but for the application to Government resolved 

 upon at the last meeting of the Association, the success of which 

 had been announced in the volume of Reports which had since 

 been printed. The Professor next referred to the progress which 

 by the same agency is making in the observing of the tides and 

 the discussion of tide observations, and to the experiments on 

 the effects of long-continued heat, which are going on in the 



