38 REPORT—1840. 
urging the mighty mass steadily forward in its regulated 
course ; and that at the same height precisely, and at its ap- 
pointed hour, will its proud waves be stayed. Let us remem- 
ber that, even admitting the sufficiency of labourers and of 
enterprize, it is necessary that this power should receive a use- 
ful direction, that it may not be wasted by misapplication, en- 
feebled by diffusion, and degraded to unworthy ends. He who 
points out distinctly where energy may be usefully applied, 
—who concentrates scattered and disunited forces,—who holds 
up continually to view the demands of science as worthy of in- 
dividual pursuit and national encouragement, in opposition to 
the popular call for the bare quantum of information gleaned 
from desultory experience, which may penuriously supply the 
exigency of the moment,—he it is who contributes to the ulti- 
mate economy of mental labour, to the advancement of sub- 
stantial knowledge, and, it may be, to raise the intellectual cha- 
racter of his country. 
4. Impressed with these views of the possible utility of re- 
ports, such as those which the British Association has from 
time to time required of its members, I attempt the task of 
continuing my report with more reluctance than I felt in com- 
mencing it; and, lest more may be expected than I am at all 
prepared to fulfil, I will premise, that I shall feel myself at 
liberty to select, for fuller illustrations, those departments of 
the widely ramified science of meteorology on which I may 
have some matured suggestions to offer, without in the least 
degree inferring a depreciation of those topics which the limits, 
both of time and space, to which I am confined, prevent me 
from dwelling upon in equal detail. 
5. It is not proposed, then, in this report, to supply nearly 
all the deficiencies which, I am very sensible, exist in the pre- 
vious one, nor yet to enter at length upon subjects which in it 
were comparatively untouched, but rather to select such topics 
as bear most upon general principles, and afford room for prac- 
tical suggestions; giving, as far as may be, a bibliography of 
meteorological science in its wider acceptation, particularly 
during the last eight years. 
6. And here I would acknowledge the useful suggestions 
and information which I have received from the excellent Ger- 
man edition of my former report, translated and most materi- 
ally amplified by Mahlmann*, in which many involuntary omis- 
sions have been ably supplied, and subjects purposely passed 
* Abriss einer Geschichte der neuern Fortschritte und des gegenwdartigen 
Zustandes der Meteorologie, &c. iibersetzt und erginzt von W. Mahlmann. 
Berlin, Liideritz, 1836, pp. 248. 
