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Proceedings of the Society for the Encouragement of the Useful 

 Arts for Scotland, Session 1838-9. (Continued from Vol. 

 XXV. p. 413.) 



The Society for the Encouragement of the Useful Arts held 

 the first meeting of its eighteenth Session in the Royal Insti- 

 tution, on Wednesday, 14th November 1838, Sir John Graham 

 Daly ell, President of the Society, in the chair. 



Sir John, on taking the chair, addressed the meeting to the 

 following effect : — The Society had now assembled after a 

 short recess. The multiplied business of the preceding session 

 left little interval for leisure. A greater number of valuable 

 papers had been read, a greater number of machines, models, 

 and drawings, of expedients and improvements in the arts 

 presented, than in any previous year ; fifty-four new members 

 also enlarged the roll. The views of the Society being directed 

 exclusively to the public benefit, no one was denied its pa- 

 tronage. It was impossible to define the importance of the 

 useful arts. That might be the subject of a long discom'se. 

 But as from these almost every human comfort and conveni- 

 ence were derived, it could be estimated only by anticipating 

 the condition of mankind if deprived of them ; for an imme- 

 diate relapse to the savage state would follow. Bereft of the 

 arts, man is a wanderer, naked and defenceless, seeking a pre- 

 carious subsistence, inhabiting the woods or caverns in the 

 earth, ignorant of divine and moral precept. Possessed of the 

 arts, we revel in luxuries, dwell in palaces, roll in elegant car- 

 riages, clothe ourselves in sOks and satins ; and, above all, we 

 ascend to the regions of science through the subservience of 

 the arts. The vast importance of patronizing the useful arts 

 was hence self-evident ; it needed no demonstration. But how- 

 ever zealous in its duty, the Society itself required the public 

 countenance, for the common cause could not be rendered suf- 

 ficiently effectual by its labours and resources alone, though 

 the grateful recompense of approbation was a powerful sti- 

 mulus to renovated exertions. 



The following communications were then laid before the 

 Society : — 



1. On Gcodetical Surveying and Trigonometrical Levelling. By the 



