APPROPRIATE OFFICES FOR SCIENTIFIC MEN. 389 



several official situations ; and her universities, be- 

 sides the ordinary chairs for professional education, 

 might have contained others, which, while they at- 

 tracted men of great name within their precincts, 

 left them sufficient leisure to pursue their researches. 

 All this might have been expected in England, for 

 this simple reason, because it is found in other 

 countries, less able and less called upon, to be 

 liberal to their philosophers. But how stands the 

 case with- us? The Board of Longitude became 

 almost useless, from being occupied by unscientific 

 men; it was thus brought into disrepute, and was 

 abolished in 1828. Of the three lighthouse Boards, 

 " by that fatality which impends over every British 

 institution," not one of all the numerous members 

 and officers is a man of science, or is even ac- 

 quainted with those branches of optics which re- 

 gulate the condensation and distribution of that 

 element which it is their sole business to diffuse 

 over the deep. That boards so constituted are 

 totally disqualified to judge of improvements or in- 

 ventions offered for their adoption, is quite natural. 

 There is a remarkable instance recorded by the 

 writer we have just quoted*, wherein the inventor 

 of a new compound lens, after vainly endeavouring 

 to draw the attention of our boards to his discovery, 

 had the mortification of seeing it claimed some 

 years after by a learned foreigner, and universally 

 introduced on the coasts of France as a new and 

 important improvement in lighthouse illumination, 

 while the lighthouses upon our shores, proverbially 



* Quarterly Review. 



cc 3 



