May i8, 1876] 



NATURE 



55 



modern forms. It is this — how much our predecessors 

 managed to achieve with the limited means at their dis- 

 posal. If we compare the magnificent telescopes, the 

 exquisite clockwork, the multiplicity of optical appliances, 

 now to be found in almost every private, and still more in 

 every public, observatory, with those of two centuries 

 past ; or, again, if we look at the instruments with which 

 Arago and Brewster made their magnificent discoveries 

 in polarised light, in contrast to those with which the 

 adjoining room is literally teeming, we may well pause to 

 reflect how much of their discoveries was due to the men 

 themselves, and how comparatively little to the instru- 

 ments at their command. 



And yet we must not measure either the men or their 

 results by this standard alone. The character of the 

 problems which nature propounds, or which our prede- 

 cessors leave as a legacy to our generation, varies greatly 

 from time to time. First, we have some great striking 

 question, the very conception and statement of which de- 

 mands the very highest powers of the human mind ; unless, 

 indeed, the clear and distinct statement of every problem 

 may be regarded as the first and most important step 

 towards its solution. Next follow the first outlines of the 

 solution sketched in bold outline by some master hand ; 

 afterwards, the careful and often tedious working out of 

 the details of the problem, the numerical evaluation of 

 the constants involved, and the reduction of all the 

 quantities to strict measurement. It is in this part of the 

 business that the more elaborate instruments are especially 

 required. It is for bringing small differences to actual mea- 

 surement, for detecting quantities otherwise inappreciable, 

 that the complex refinements with which we are here 

 surrounded become of the first importance. But happily 

 this somewhat overwhelming complication is not of peren- 

 nial growth, for, curiously enough, by a kind of natural 

 compensation, it relieves itself. In reviewing from time 

 to time the various aspects of a problem in connection 

 with the instrumental appliances designed for its solution, 

 the essential features come out by degrees more strongly 

 in relief. One by one the unimportant parts are cast 

 aside, and the apparatus becomes reduced to its essential 

 elements. This simplification of parts, this cutting off of 

 redundancies, must not, however, be understood as de- 

 tracting from the merit of the original devisors of the 

 instruments so simplified ; the first grand requisite is to 

 effect what is necessary for the solution of the problem, 

 then follows the question whether it can be done more 

 simply or by some better process. 



And this leads me in the next place to advert for a 

 moment to the advantages which may accrue to the cul- 

 tivators of science, and through them to the nation at 

 large, from a national collection of scientific apparatus. 

 Through the liberality of our foreign neighbours, and 

 through the exertions of our own countrymen, we have 

 here a magnificent specimen, an almost ideal exemplar, 

 of what such a collection may be. By bringing together 

 in one place, and by rendering accessible to men of 

 science generally, the instrumental treasures already 

 accumulated, and constantly accumulating, we should 

 not only portray in, as it were, living colours the history 

 of science, we should not only be paying just tribute to 

 the memory of the great men who have gone before us, 

 but we should afford opportunities of reverting to old 

 lines of thought, of repeating with the identical instru- 

 ments important but half-forgotten experiments, of weav- 

 ing together threads of scattered researches, which could 

 otherwise be taken up again only with difficulty, and after 

 an expenditure of much and irretrievable time. 



Let me now turn for a moment to the other side of 

 the picture. If the collection in the midst of which we 

 are here assembled is an evidence of the valuable relics 

 which still remain to us of the great men who have passed 

 away, the circumstances under which some of them have 

 found their way hither, and the vacant places due to the 



absence of others, are no less evidence of how much the 

 preservation of such objects would be promoted by the 

 establishment of a museum such as I have ventured to 

 suggest. Many circumstances contribute to thrust into 

 oblivion, or to put absolutely out of reach of future 

 recovery, original apparatus. First, the paramount im- 

 portance and immediate uses of an improved instrument 

 or a new invention ; next, in Government departments 

 such as the Survey, the Post Office, &c., the imperative 

 demands of the public service, which leave little or no 

 time for a retrospect of the past ; and if I may add a 

 word from the experience of private individuals, the 

 pressing calls of space and expense lead the possessors 

 to throw away, or to utilise, by conversion of the 

 materials to new purposes, apparatus which has done its 

 work. I venture to particularise one or two considera- 

 tions, which will probably have occurred to many of you, 

 but which appear to me to illustrate the above remarks. 

 In the case of the Ordnance Survey it is almost certain 

 that the current work of the department would never have 

 required, and it is doubtful whether any private interpo- 

 sition would have brought about, the removal of the 

 disused instruments, here exhibited, from the cellars at 

 Southampton. Again, the Post Office would hardly 

 have been justified in devoting valuable time to the 

 arrangement, or valuable space to the storage, of in- 

 struments no longer on active service, except at the 

 call of a public department, or for a public purpose. 

 And surely it would be a matter of serious regret that the 

 time already spent upon the collection now before us 

 should have no issue beyond the purposes of the present 

 exhibition. To take another instance ; we have here 

 fragments, but only fragments, of Baily's apparatus for 

 repeating Cavendish's experiments ; but of Cavendish's 

 own apparatus we have simply nothing. Again, Wheat- 

 stone's instrumental remains must inevitably have been 

 broken up and scattered or destroyed, if there had not 

 been found at Kmg's College a resting-place, and 

 authorities inteUigent enough to appreciate and willing 

 to receive them. Of other individuals from ^hom 

 apparatus, now rf historical interest, has been re- 

 ceived, some frcm sheer lack of space have been 

 breaking up old instruments, while others, from a modesty 

 commendable in itself, were with difficulty persuaded of, 

 and even now are only beginning to perceive, the value, in 

 a national and cosmopolitan point of view, of their own 

 contributions. Lastly, there is, I think, little doubt but 

 that, if the objects in question were to go a-begging, they 

 would be gladly received in some of the foreign museums 

 which have so liberally contributed on the present 

 occasion. 



To put the suggestion in a more tangible form I would 

 venture to suggest that, in the first instance, instruments 

 whose immediate use has gone by, but which are never- 

 theless of historical interest, lent either by public depart- 

 ments or by private individuals, might remain here on 

 permanent loan ; further, that other instruments as they 

 pass out of active service, for example, from the Admir- 

 alty, from the Board of Trade, from the Ordnance Survey, 

 or from the other departments, should similarly find a 

 place in this museum. In such a category also might be 

 included the scientific outfit of the Challenger, and of the 

 Arctic Expeditions, and likewise those of expeditions for 

 the observations of the transit of Venus or of solar eclipses. 

 To these might be added apparatus purchased for special 

 investigations through the parliamentary grant annually 

 administered by the Royal Society. And further if, as I 

 would suggest, this deposit of instruments be made with- 

 out alienation of ownership, then private societies or even 

 individuals might be glad to avail themselves of such a 

 depository of instruments not actually in use. 



In making such a suggestion, it must of course be 

 assumed that the custody of property so valuable in itself, 

 and so delicate in its nature, would be confided to a 



