XXVIi1 REPORT—1846. 
the notice of the Ministers of the day to every great scientific measure which 
seemed, after due consideration, likely to promote the interests or raise the 
character of the British nation. Guided in the choice of these applications 
by a committee selected from among its members, it has sedulously avoided 
the presentation of any request which did not rest on a rational basis, and 
our rulers, far from resisting such appeals, have uniformly and cordially 
acquiesced in them. Thus it was when, after paying large sums from our 
own funds for the reduction of masses of astronomical observations, we 
represented to the Government the necessity of enabling the Astronomer 
Royal to perform the same work on the observations of his predecessors 
which had accumulated in the archives of Greenwich, our appeal was an- 
swered by arrangements for completing so important a public object at the 
public expense. Thus it was, when contemplating the vast accession to pure 
science as well as to useful maritime knowledge, to be gained by the ex- 
ploration of the South Polar regions, that we gave the first impulse to the 
project of the great Antarctic expedition, which, supported by the influence 
of the Royal Society and its noble President, obtained the full assent of the 
Government, and led to results which, through the merits of Sir James 
Ross and his companions, have shed a bright lustre on our country, by 
copious additions to geography and natural history, and by affording nu- 
merous data for the development of the laws that regulate the magnetism of 
the earth. 
The mention of terrestrial magnetism brings with it a crowd of recol- 
lections honourable to the British Association, from the perspicuous manner 
in which every portion of fresh knowledge on this important subject has 
been stored up in our volumes, with a view to generalization, by Colonel 
Sabine and others; whilst a wide field for its diffusion and combination has 
been secured by the congress held at our last meeting, at which some of the 
most distinguished foreign and British magneticians were assembled under 
the presidency of Sir John Herschel. 
It is indeed most satisfactory for us to know, that not only did all the 
recommendations of the Association on this subject which were presented 
to our Government meet with a most favourable reception, but that in 
consequence of the representations made by Her Majesty’s Secretary of, 
State for Foreign Affairs to the public authorities of other countries which 
had previously taken part in the system of cooperative observation, the 
Governments of Russia, Austria, Prussia and Belgium have notified their 
intention of continuing their respective magnetical and meteorological ob- 
servations for another term of three years. 
‘In passing by other instances in which public liberality has been directed 
to channels of knowledge which required opening out, I must not omit to 
notice the grant obtained from our gracious Sovereign, of the Royal Obser- 
vatory at Kew, which, previously dismantled of its astronomical instruments, 
has, under the suggestions of Professor Wheatstone, been converted by us 
into a station for observations purely physical, and especially for those de- 
tails of atmospheric phenomena which are so minute and numerous, and 
require such unremitting attention, that they imperiously call for separate 
establishments. In realizing this principle, we can now refer British and 
foreign philosophers to our own observatory at Kew, where I have the au- 
thority of most adequate judges for saying they will find that a great amount 
of electrical and meteorological observation has been made, and a system- 
atic inquiry into the intricate subject of atmospheric electricity carried 
out by Mr. Ronalds, to which no higher praise can be given, than that it 
has, in fact, furnished the model of the processes conducted at the Royal 
