Major-General Sabine on Colonial Magnetic Observatories. 307 
primary object, and practical application the secondary, incidental, 
and collateral one. ‘That the time is now fully arrived when other 
great branches of physical knowledge must be considered as entitled 
to share in that public support and encouragement which has hitherto 
fallen to the lot of astronomy alone, will, we think, be granted with- 
out hesitation by all who duly consider the present state and pro- 
spects of science. The great problems which offer themselves on 
all hands for solution—problems which the wants of the age force 
upon us as practically interesting, and with which its intellect feels 
itself competent to deal—are far more complex in their conditions, 
and depend on data which, to be of use, must be accumulated in far 
greater masses, collected over an infinitely wider field, and worked 
upon with a greater and more systematized power, than has sufficed 
for the necessities of astronomy. ‘The collecting, arranging, and 
duly combining these data are operations, which, to be carried out 
to the extent of the requirements of modern science, lie utterly be- 
yond the reach of all private industry, means or enterprize. Our 
demands are not merely for a slight and easual sprinkling to refresh 
and invigorate an ornamental or luxurious product, but for @ copious, 
steady, and well-directed stream, to call forth from a soil ready to 
yield it, an ample, healthful, and remunerating harvest. 'There are 
secrets of nature we would fain see revealed,—resources hidden in her 
fertile bosom for the well-being of man upon earth, we would fain 
see opened up for the use of the generation to which we belong. But 
if we would be enlightened by the one, or benefited by the other, 
we must lay on power, both moral and physical, without grudging 
and without stint.” 
If at the period when it was still doubtful what the Colonial Ob- 
servatories then just established might be able to accomplish,—and 
when, in effect, the expectations from them were little more than 
the anticipations of what a voyage of discovery upon an unknown 
ocean might produce,—the propriety of embarking upon such inves- 
tigations was thus unhesitatingly affirmed, how much more confidently 
may the duty of perseverance be insisied upon, when the results of 
the first experiment have already more than realized the hopes which 
caused it to be undertaken. They have indeed confirmed the belief 
that ‘‘ the gigantic problem proposed to be resolved”’ is of a nature 
to yield in its full extent only to ‘continued and persevering inquiry ;”” 
but at the same time they may be said, in a certain sense, to have 
narrowed the field of inquiry, by showing more distinctly than was 
previously apprehended, both what is desired to be known, and how 
and where it is to be sought. If the history of magnetical science 
is to be something more than a fragment, the research must be per- 
severed in. 
In considering the means by which the researches thus opened out 
may be most advantageously prosecuted, it is natural that we should 
look, in the first instance, to the adoption, at other selected stations, 
of arrangements similar to those which were instituted at the stations 
which were chosen for a first, and as it has proved, successful expe- 
riment ; and with this view I may be permitted to restate the opi. 
