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and drawings of the appearances presented by Nebulae visible in 

 our own latitudes ; and it is most desirable that a telescope, not much, 

 if any, inferior in power to his, should be set up somewhere in the 

 Southern Hemisphere to perform for the Nebulae there visible the 

 like office. Now the cost of such an instrument will be very con- 

 siderable, and the expense will not be confined to its construction 

 merely, but a large permanent outlay will be necessary for the 

 maintenance of observers, and occasional repolishing of the specula, 

 repairs, and so forth. Here is an object in which all mankind are 

 interested, but of which the importance is not likely to be so well 

 appreciated by the majority of even educated men, as to make them, 

 very willing to spend large sums upon carrying it out ; it is therefore 

 one to which the funds of several communities might usefully con- 

 tribute a small share. Happily there are precedents for the adoption 

 of such a course, for our Government has in one instance at least 

 within my knowledge, and perhaps in others, liberally aided with 

 its resources the labours of foreign men of science. Surely it is a 

 pleasing spectacle to view several nations combining their resources 

 to advance highly intellectual inquiries, in the success of which the 

 whole world is concerned ; and though it may not at first sight appear 

 that any utilitarian end is likely to be promoted by the discovery 

 of laws which prevail in regions so far removed from ourselves, still 

 the whole history of Science shows, that useful applications are con- 

 tinually arising in quarters where they are most unexpected ; and he 

 who is thus deterred from prosecuting scientific discovery, in any* 

 quarter whatever, has watched the progress of the inductive 

 sciences and the gradual growth of art to very little purpose. No 

 knowledge of the laws of the grander phenomena of nature can pos- 

 sibly be a matter of indifference to us, when every day's experience 

 more and more establishes the fact of the close analogies which sub- 

 sist between all her operations. Who can say, therefore, that the 

 lapse of ages will not reveal the effects of laws in operation in these 

 mighty systems (where we are enabled, as it were, to take a compre- 

 hensive survey of the field of action), the observation of which may 

 throw important light upon obscure phenomena, the mysteries of 

 which have hitherto baffled the researches of our most acute philo- 

 sophers ? and once admit that these revelations may be made, and it- 

 may be safely predicated that a long succession of applications to- 



