IXXX REPORT — 1855. 



eagerly sought for by the best instrument-makers ; whilst Capt. FitzRoy's 

 office and duties are in themselves an acknowledgement of no small im- 

 portance of the public value of systematic observation. 



The increasing employment of iron in ship-building has brought into cor- 

 responding notice the uncertainty which attends the action of the compass 

 on board vessels of that construction. This important and intricate subject 

 has been treated of by Mr. Arcliibald Smith of Jordan Hill, with all the re- 

 sources of his high mathematical and scientific attainments, in publications 

 which have appeared under the sanction and witli the recommendation of 

 the Admiralty. It will not fail to interest this great commercial city, whose 

 freights are on every sea, that this question was taken up at the last Liver- 

 pool Meeting by Dr. Scoresby, that it has continued to occupy his close 

 attention, and that he intends to communicate to this Meeting of the Asso- 

 ciation some of the valuable results of his investigations. 



Feeling deeply, as I do, my own inability to give anything like an ade- 

 quate sketch — even in outline — of the progress of science during the last 

 few years, I remember at the same time with some satisfaction, that it is less 

 the business of this Association to boast of the achievements which have 

 already been effected, than to devise means of facilitating those which are 

 yet to come. You have appointed a Parliamentary Committee for the con- 

 sideration of one impoi'tant branch of this inquiry. We shall doubtless hear 

 from my noble friend Lord Wrottesley those recommendations which have 

 been the result of its recent labours, and which will be found to owe much 

 to his enlightened zeal, to his great knowledge and his sound judgment. In 

 the meantime, I trust I may be allowed to make a few general observations 

 on what appear to me to be some of the best means of promoting in this 

 country the advancement of physical science. 



It will readily be understood, that, in referring for a moment here to the 

 aid which may be afforded by the State to the advancement of science, I 

 divest myself entirely of any official character other than that which belongs 

 to me as your President, and that I seek to give expression to my own 

 opinions only. 



I am not one of those who are disposed to look to public authority as 

 the primary or the best supporter of abstract science. In the main it must 

 depend for its advancement on its own inexhaustible attractions, — on the 

 delight which it affords us to study the constitution of the world around 

 us, and to endeavour to understand^ though it be but darkly, how the 

 reins of its government are held. Nor am I disposed to indulge in any 

 complaint on a matter which has lately attracted some attention among 

 scientific men. In a great manufacturing country like ours, the dispo- 

 sition of whose people is eminently practical, it is perfectly natural that 

 greater attention should be bestowed on the arts than on the abstract 

 sciences. This, indeed, is but adhering to what has been hitherto at least 

 the natural and historical order of precedence ; for it is a just observa- 

 tion of Professor Whewell, in his lecture on the results of the Great Exhi- 

 bition of 1851, that practice has generally gone before theory — results have 

 been arrived at, before the laws on which they depend had been defined or 

 understood. Art, in short, has preceded science. But it is equally import- 

 ant to observe, that in recent times this order has been in numberless 

 instances reversed. Abstract science has gone ahead of the arts, and the 

 conduct of the workshop is now perpetually receiving its direction from the 

 experiments of the laboratory. Perhaps the most wonderful discovery of 

 modern days — that of the Electric Telegraph — was thought out and perfected, 

 so far as its principle was concerned, in the closet and the lecture-room, and 



