XXil REPORT—1848. 
Association. This expenditure is not all necessary. It arises in part from 
the system of accepting invitations and requiring guarantees. He estimates 
that £500 will be fully sufficient, if placed under his own management, to 
conduct a full meeting of the Association at a place previously selected. He 
even thinks £400 might be enough, if the sections be reduced to five (by 
uniting A and G), and care be taken in the appointment of clerks, messengers 
and printers. 
“ To provide for this expense, the Association must find the means of de- 
voting £150 a year (at least) in addition to its present annual payments. 
But will this be all spent in vain? all lost ?. He thinks not. There is in the pre- 
sent system of raising local funds, a circumstance not to be overlooked which 
is productive of much loss to the Association. By raising so many hundred 
pounds at each place in the way of contribution to local expenses, there is 
really abstracted much from the contribution to the general purposes of the 
Association. Only a certain sum cat be raised in the place, and the larger 
the contribution required for local objects, the fewer are the members, and 
the smaller the receipts of the Association. Gentlemen who might have 
paid £10, pay £2; those who might have paid £2, are content with paying 
£1; and in some cases the very demand of a local contribution has driven a 
member from the ranks of the Association. 
* Again, by selecting for our place of meeting a central accessible point in 
an interesting district, where science has food and life, we may expect to 
secure a large local attendance of new members, and yet not lose our friends 
from a distance. But it has happened that a meeting by invitation has been 
so ill attended from public occurrences and peculiarities, as to cause a 
loss of many times £150 to the Association Treasury. 
‘Finally, as by this plan we do not preclude ourselves from the advantage 
of accepting invitations from the universities and large towns, but on the _ . 
contrary can afford to wait for the years which may be most convenient to those 
places, there seems no objection of much strength to forbid the trial of it. 
“In this case he would call attention to Derby, as centrally situated, very 
accessible, in a very interesting country which has not been visited, and by 
no means deficient in scientific activity. Derby affords abundant accommo- 
dation.” 
RECOMMENDATIONS ADOPTED BY THE GENERAL CoMMITTEE AT THE 
Swansea Meetine 1n Avcust 1849. 
Involving Application to Government. 
That the President and General Secretary be authorised to apply to Her 
Majesty’s Government for the continuation of the Meteorological and Mag- 
netical Observatory at Toronto, up to the 31st of December 1850. 
Involving Grants of Money. 
That Mr. Birt be requested to undertake the Reduction and Discussion 
of the Electrical Observations made at Kew, with the sum of £50 at his 
disposal for the purpose. 
That the sum of £100 be placed at the disposal of the Council, for the 
expenses of Kew Observatory. 
That Sir H. T. De la Beche, Sir William Hooker, Dr. Daubeny, Mr. Hen- 
frey, and Mr. Hunt, be requested to investigate the action of Carbonic Acid 
on the growth of Plants allied to those of the Coal-formation, with the balance 
of the original grant (£5) at their disposal. 
ee or 
OS 
a oe 
