lx REPORT—1852. 
quently required in physical experiments. An establishment has long been 
a desideratum in which instruments for various physical researches employed 
in foreign countries should be tried in comparison with the instruments used 
here, and the relative merits of each examined, and in which new and pro- 
mising inventions and suggestions should receive a practical trial. Amongst 
its other services rendered to Science and to the country, the British Associa- 
tion is now entitled to claim the merit of having organized an establishment 
which appears extremely well-suited to supply this deficiency, and needs only 
more extensive means to supply it to any required extent. The applications 
which have been made to Kew in the past year by Profs. Forbes and Thomson 
for thermometers of particular kinds, required in very delicate experiments in 
which those gentlemen are engaged, and by the Admiralty for Standard Ther- 
mometers for very low temperatures to be employed by the Arctic Expeditions, 
show that the advantages to be derived from such an establishment are already 
beginning to be recognised ; and as these become more known and felt, it may 
confidently be anticipated that means will not be wanting for such an exten- 
sion of the establishment at Kew, as may be necessary to meet fully the 
public requirements. The desire which isso frequently manifested- by 
voyagers and travellers in distant countries to contribute to our knowledge 
of terrestrial physics, would be greatly aided by increased facilities afforded 
to them of obtaining suitable and well-assured instruments, and still more if 
practical instruction or advice could be added. It is not from deficiency of 
interest, or of a desire to be useful in such inquiries, that our British travellers 
do not reap the full advantages of the great opportunities which they possess, 
so much as from the absence of any provision for supplying instruments on 
which reliance can be placed with practical instructions for their use. In no 
department is the “systematic direction,” which it is the object of the British 
Association to communicate to the sciences generally, more needed than in 
Physical Geography. To carry this desirable purpose into effect, might with 
great propriety and public benefit be made to form a branch of the duties of 
the Kew Observatory. 
In compliance with a resolution of the Council, the Kew Committee have 
made arrangements for four aéronautic ascents in the Nassau Balloon, chiefly 
for the purpose of investigating the laws of the decrement of temperature 
and of aqueous vapour in ascending into the atmosphere. The two first of 
these ascents took place on the 17th and 26th of August, attaining in each 
case between 19,000 and 20,000 feet, and will be the subject of a commu- 
nication to the Association, which will doubtless excite much interest, from 
Mr. Welsh of the Kew Observatory, who was charged by the Superintend- 
ing Committee with the conduct of the observations. 
The opportunity which the Observatory furnishes to the Association, of a 
convenient locality, presenting many facilities for carrying on a series: of 
delicate experiments, has been taken advantage of by Professor Stokes for 
experiments in which he is engaged on the Index of Friction in different 

