460 ADDRESS DELIVERED AT A MEETING 



to grasp the possible Mure which may be opened to this and 

 other departments of Astronomical Science by the application of 

 such means : I will mention but one amongst the many anticipa- 

 tions which press for utterance. The observations of Bessel have 

 detected proper motions in the fixed stars, Sinus and Procyon, 

 which appear to establish the existence of invisible companions, of 

 vast magnitude, about which they revolve. Is the invisibility of 

 these great bodies relative only ? and if so, may it not be dispelled 

 before the optical power which Lord Rosse has brought to bear 

 upon the Heavens ? 



" Astronomy, however," to use the words of one whose philoso- 

 phic mind, and varied and profound acquirements, well entitle him 

 to legislate for science, " is only one out of many sciences, which 

 can be advanced by a combined system of observation and calcula- 

 tion, carried on uninterruptedly. * in a utili- 

 tarian point of view, the globe which we inhabit is quite as 

 important a subject 'of scientific inquiry as the stars. We depend 

 for our bread of life, and every comfort, on its climates and seasons, 

 on the movements of its wind and waters. We guide ourselves 

 over the ocean, when astronomical observations fail, by our know- 

 ledge of the laws of its magnetism ; we learn the sublimest lessons 

 from the records of its geological history ; and the great facts 

 which its figure, magnitude, and attraction offer to mathematical 

 inquiry form the very basis of Astronomy itself. Terrestrial 

 Physics, therefore, form a subject every way worthy to be associa- 

 ted with Astronomy as a matter of universal interest and public 

 support, and one which cannot adequately be studied except in the 

 way in which Astronomy itself has been by permanent establish- 

 ments keeping up an unbroken series of observation." 



Two of the leading branches of Terrestrial Physics the sciences 

 of Meteorology and Magnetism have now, as you know, for the 

 last six years, been investigated after one uniform and comprehen- 

 sive scheme, in more than thirty observing stations scattered over 

 the entire globe; and the very bounds of civilization itself have 

 been overleaped in order to give a wider development to the sys- 

 tem. In order to realize the view which Sir John Herschel has so 

 often and so ably advocated, it is only necessary to give permanence 

 to the more important of these Observatories, and to enlarge some- 

 what their sphere of labour. All the phenomena of which our 

 earth, its ocean, or its atmosphere, is the seat ; the tides and the 



