XXVi REPORT — 1853. 



be useful to connect the work proposed by your Association with our labours ; 

 and if so, who is the proper person to address in regard to the matter ? Will 

 you oblige me by informing me in tliis matter? 



" * Yours truly and respectfully, 



" ' A. D. Bache.' 

 " 'Colonel Edward Sabine, 

 President of the British Association.' 



" ' Colonel Sabine to Rear- Admiral Sir F. Beaufort, K.C.B., Hydrographer. 



" ' Woolwich, November 10, 1852. 



« < Sir, — I beg leave to enclose the copy of a letter which, as President 

 of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, I have received 

 from Dr. Bache, Director of the Coast Survey of the United States of North 

 America. 



" ' The recommendation of a ' Survey of the Gulf-stream,' referred to by 

 Dr. Bache, is contained in the accompanying address of the President at the 

 commencement of the Belfast Meeting of the British Association ; the para- 

 graph (page 19) is marked, and is to be taken in connexion with the pre- 

 ceding paragraph, referring to the correspondence which has recently taken 

 place between the British and United States Governments and the British 

 Government and the Royal Society of London, on the subject of a conjoint 

 investigation into the currents and temperatures of the ocean by the ships of 

 both nations under their respective hydrographic offices. 



" ' It is possible that the British Government may have acceded to the pro- 

 position to this effect made to them by the Government of the United States, 

 and strongly recommended in the report wliich the Earl of Malmesbury re- 

 quested from the President and Council of the Royal Society ; and that the 

 department of the Admiralty over which you preside may have received 

 directions to communicate accordingly with the Hydrographic Office of the 

 United States; in this case you may be able to inform me at once to whom 

 I should recommend Dr. Bache to address himself. 



" ' Should, however, no such directions have yet issued, it appears to me 

 most desirable that I should place Dr. Bache's letter in your hands, to be 

 communicated, should you think proper to do so, to the Lords Commissioners 

 of the Admiralty ; manifesting as it does, the desire which is felt by a gentle- 

 man in his high official position in the United States, to cooperate with the 

 British Navy in accomplishing a ' systematic survey of the Gulf-stream for 

 hydrographic purposes,' in consonance with the general plan proposed by the 

 Government of the United States to Her Majesty's Government. 

 " ' 1 have the honour to be. Sir, 

 " ' Your obedient Servant, 



" ' Edward Sabine, 

 " ^President of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science.' 

 " ' The Hydrographer of the Admiralty.' 



" ' Hydrographic Otfice, Admiralty, May 5, 1853. 

 " ' Sir, — I have to thank you for the Copy of Dr. Bache's letter, which 

 shows how rapidly every useful jiroject in art or science is taken up in the 

 United States, and then how energetically it is pushed forward. With 

 respect to its immediate subject, you have long known that a thorough 

 examination of the Gulf-stream has been, in my estimation, an object of great 

 importance to navigation, and you may be therefore sure that whenever, and 



