REPORT OF THE COUNCIL. XXVU 



principal meteorological instruments, and the investigation of the theories 

 applying to their use, have undergone careful experimental investigation ; 

 that these investigations are now in the course of being repeated and extended 

 in England, and that they are probably carried on also in other countries. 

 For the successful establishment therefore of such an Association, the Council 

 are disposed to look to some future time, when the construction of instru- 

 ments shall be better understood, when the purposes of observation shall be 

 more distinctly fixed, and when the political condition of Europe shall be 

 more favourable to the co-operation of nations for a scientific object. 



" * We have the honour, &c. 



;; ; ^^^I^-^^^ ^^^^^^^ j General Secretaries.' " 

 " ' J. Forbes Koyle J 



" ' A Monsieur A. T. Kupffer.' " 



VII. The Council have been informed by a Committee of the inhabitants 

 of Belfast, appointed in 1848 to make arrangements for inviting the British 

 Association to hold an early meeting in that town, that all the public bodies 

 of Belfast, and the Grand Jury of the County of Antrim, are prepared to 

 renew their invitation for the year 1852, and that a deputation will attend at 

 Ipswich for that purpose. 



VIII. The Council are glad to havejt in their power to report to the Gene- 

 ral Committee, and through them to the Members of the Association at large, 

 that the conduct of the experimental researches proceeding at the Physical Ob- 

 servatory of the British Association at Kew, has received the most assiduous 

 and unremitting attention from the Committee of Superintendence, continued 

 by the General Committee at Edinburgh, and re-appointed by the Council 

 at their first meeting in November last ; and that the number, variety, and 

 importance of the researches in progress and in preparation, are such as to 

 give full promise of the Kew Observatory becoming a most valuable esta- 

 blishment for the advancement of the Physical Sciences. In such a brief 

 notice of these researches as appears most suitable for this Report, it is the 

 purpose of the Council to indicate the objects rather than to explain or discuss 

 them, for which the meetings of the Sections will afford more appropriate 

 occasions ; and in this view the Council have requested that the Members of 

 the Kew Committee who have attended to particular branches of the expe- 

 riments in progress, will prepare Reports concerning them specially designed 

 for communication to the Sections, in addition to the Report annually pre- 

 sented by Mr. Ronalds, whose valuable and gratuitous services are still 

 continued. In reference to the instruction of the General Committee to the 

 Council at the Edinburgh Meeting, to communicate with the Government, 

 if necessary, respecting the possibility of relieving the Association from the 

 expense of maintaining the establishment at Kew, the Council have not 

 thought it desirable to make such direct application to the Government, but 

 they have to report that considerable additions have been obtained to the 

 pecuniary resources by which the experimental researches are carried on — 

 1st, from the Donation Fund of the Royal Society, and 2nd, from the Go- 

 vernment Grant, placed annually at the disposal of the President and Council 

 of the Royal Society, the particulars of which will now be stated. 



1. £100 was allotted from the Government Grant of 1850 for the purchase 

 of magnetical and meteorological instruments of a new construction, for a 

 trial of their merits at the Kew Observatory. This sum has been expended 

 ' — 1st, in the construction of a Vertical Force Magnetograph, for the self- 

 registry on Mr. Ronalds's principle of the variations of the Vertical Force ; 



