XXXIV REPORT—1848. 
sion is required from me. The British Association has now existed eighteen 
years ;—it has visited the chief universities and the most important commer- 
cial towns of the empire, with the exception of London, which is excluded by 
our provincial character ;—it has everywhere received the most kind, the most 
generous encouragement :—-it may therefore well consider itself as established 
in public favour, and requiring neither justification nor defence. 
My friend Sir Robert Inglis, in his admirable address at Oxford, gave you 
an elaborate account of the discoveries of the year in most of the branches of 
knowledge,—including much indeed that could hardly, in strictness, belong 
to such narrow limits. I shall not endeavour to follow his example, Indeed, 
I do not think that it is at all necessary that such a course should be an an- 
nual one, however advisable from time to time. I think it would be a fatigue 
to you were I to pursue it. Besides this, I know my own physical strength 
would not be equal to so long an address, and that were I to attempt it I 
should incapacitate myself for the performance of my duties for the rest of 
the week. There are, however, some points to which I think it right to 
allude. 
First, then, I will refer to the great system of inquiring into terrestrial 
magnetism now carrying on by our own and other Governments, at the 
united request of the British Association and the Royal Society, I am re- 
joiced to be able to say, that in spite of the politically disturbed state of the 
continent of Europe, those inquiries have not been suspended,—and I hope 
they will be continued to the period which was proposed for them by the 
Magnetic Congress at Cambridge, It was then proposed that they should be 
brought to a close at the end of next December. I trust, however, that the 
valuable inventions by which at Greenwich and at Kew magnetical disturb- 
ances are noted by self-registering instruments will secure still more ample 
information than we shall have already attained at the termination of the 
present year. 
The next subject to which I must advert, is the Observatory at Kew,— 
and I do so with a mixture of pleasure and of pain. I have said pleasure 
and pain. I advert to it with pleasure on account of the important scientific 
observations that have been there made,—the detail of which will, probably, 
be laid before you. I advert to it with pain, as the expenses of keeping it 
up have been so great that it will not be within the power of the Association 
to continue to do so much longer. 
Among the contents of our last volume I think it right to refer to what 
may be considered in a great degree a novel feature,—the ethnological por- 
tions that occupy a very considerable space. The names of their authors 
will be a sufficient guarantee of their value. Among these we find one who 
