
e REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. XXV 
for further assistance is required ; and secondly, that, having ascertained the 
state of preparation of Dr. Thomson’s researches, he has laid the case fully 
before the Court of Directorsin a letter to Mr. Melvill, to which he has as 
yet received no reply. 
(ce) The Council requested the President, Mr. Airy, to make the necessary 
application to the Court of Directors of the East India Company to afford 
Captain Strachey such aid as would enable him to publish his explorations 
in the Himalaya Mountains and in Thibet, with the necessary maps and 
illustrations; and have learned from Mr. Airy that he has been informed 
that the Chairman of the Court of Directors has signified his intention of 
giving to Captain Strachey the assistance contemplated by the Association, 
and that he has therefore taken no further step. 
“TI. The President, as one of the Committee for Tidal Observations in the 
Atlantic appointed by the General Committee at Ipswich, has communicated 
to the Council the Memorial which the Tidal Committee has presented to 
Government. It is as follows :— 
“*We beg leave to make to Her Majesty’s Government a representation 
with which we have been charged by the British Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Science, respecting the importance of ‘sending out a ship or 
ships to extend our acquaintance with the phenomena of the Tides of the 
Atlantic Ocean. 
« «The importance of an acquaintance with the phenomena of the Tides, 
both for practical and theoretical purposes, is sufficiently obvious, and has 
been recognised by the Government of this country in many ways. At 
most of the points of our own coast, and at several places in other countries, 
observations have long been made which suffice for most of these purposes. 
But perhaps it is not generally understood how far these observations, 
hitherto, are from giving us such a connected knowledge of the subject as 
may enable us to follow the course of the tide over any considerable portion 
of the Ocean. Even with regard to our own shores, such accurate know- 
ledge hardly existed till observations were made and continued for a fortnight 
at the coast-guard stations of Great Britain and Ireland in June 1834, and 
again in June 1836. On the latter occasion application was also made to 
foreign maritime states, to make a similar and simultaneous series of obser- 
vations, the Duke of Wellington, at that time Foreign Secretary of State, 
promoting the object in a manner which procured from them the most cordial 
and effective co-operation. The results of these observations were inserted 
and discussed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1836 (Part II.); and, in 
consequence, the course of the tides along the shore from the Strait of 
Gibraltar to the coast of Norway, was made out, as to some general features 
and also along the coast of the United States. But beyond these limits we 
may be said to have no connected knowledge of the course of the tides of 
the Atlantic; and even within these limits it is impossible, for want of other 
observations, to counect those which were made; for instance, the tides on 
the American and the European shores. Along the coasts of Africa and of 
South America we are ignorant of the course and progress of the tides, 
although we know some of the phanomena at detached points, and know 
some of them to be remarkable and perplexing. Nor is it at all likely that 
these defects in our knowledge will be removed by any collection of de- 
tached observations. It is only by systematic observations made with the 
express view of connecting our knowledge on this subject, and pursued from 
place to place, as the results themselves suggest, that we shall ever obtain a 
general view of the facts. Such observations might be made in no long 
