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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[July, 



mittee appointed for the purpose have laid before us at our several meetings, 

 ever since the commencement of the undertaking ; and the most recent of 

 which will be read in the Physical Section of the present meeting, in its 

 regular course. It is sufficient for me to observe, that the result has been 

 the accumulation of an enormovt mass of most valuable observations, wluch 

 are now and have been for some time in the course of publication ; and when 

 thoroughly digested and discussed, as they are sure to be, by the talent and 

 industry of magnetists and meteorologists, both in this country and abroad, 

 cannot fail to place those sciences very far indeed in advance of their actual 

 state. For such discussion, however, time must be allowed. Even were all 

 the returns from the several observatories before the public, (which they are 

 not, and are very far from being,) such is the mass of matter to be grappled 

 with, and such the multiUide of ways in which the observations will neces- 

 sarily have to be grouped and combined to elicit mean results and quantita- 

 tive laws, that several years must elapse before the full scientific value of the 

 work done can possibly be realized. 



Ej-piratioyi of the grant for /hi?se Observatories. 

 Meanwhile, a question of the utmost moment arises, and which must be 

 resolved, so far as the British Association is concerned, before the breaking 

 up of this meeting. The secoud term of three years, for which the British 

 Government and East India Company have granted their establishments- 

 nine in number — will terminate with the expiration of the current year, at 

 which period, if no provision be made for their continuance, the observations 

 at those establishments will of course cease, and with them, beyond a doubt, 

 those at a great many — probably the great majority — of the foreign estab- 

 lishments, both national and local, which have been called into existence by 

 the example of England, and depend on that example for their continuance 

 or abandonment. Now under these circumstances, it become a very grave 

 snbject for the consideration of our Committee of Recommendations, whether 

 to sutfer this term to expire without an etfort on the part of this Association 

 to influence the Government for its continuance, or whelher, on the other 

 hand, we ought to make such an effort, and endeavour to secure either the 

 continuance of these establishments for a further limited term, or the perpe- 

 tuity of this or some equivalent system of observation in the same or different 

 localities, according to the present and future exigencies of Science. I term 

 this a grave subject of deliberation, and one which will call for the exercise 

 of their soundest judgment ; because, in the first place, this system, of com- 

 bined observation is by far the greatest and most prolonged effort of scientific 

 co-operation which the world has ever witnessed; ieca(Mc, moreover, the 

 spirit in which the demands of Science have been met on this occasion by 

 our own Government, by the Company, and by the other.governments who 

 have taken part in the matter, has been, in the largest sense of the words, 

 munificent and unstinting; and because the existence of luch a spirit throws 

 upon us a solemn a solemn responsibility to recommend nothing but upon 

 the most entire conviction of very great evils consequent on the interruption, 

 .and very great benefits to accrue to Science from the continuance of the ob- 

 servations. 



Magnetic Conference. 



Happily we are not left without the means of forming a sound judgment 

 on this tremendous question. It is a case in which, connected as the Science 

 of Britain is with that of the other co-operating nation, we cannot and ought 

 not to come to any conclusions v\ithout taking into our counsels the most 

 eminent magnetists and meteorologists of other countries who have either 

 taken a direct part in the observations, or whose reputation in those sciences 

 is such as to give their opinions in matters respecting them, a commanding 

 weight. Accordingly it was resolved, at the York meeting last year, to invite 

 the attendance of the eminent individuals I have alluded to at this meeting, 

 with the especial objects of conference on the subject. And in the interval 

 since elapsed, knowing the improbability of a complete personal reunion from 

 so many distant quarters, a circular has been forn arded to each of them, pro- 

 posing certain special questions for reply, and inviting, besides, the fullest 

 and freest communication of their views on the general subject. The replies 

 received to this circular, which are numerous and in the highest degree in- 

 teresting and instructive, have been printed and forwarded to the parties re- 

 plying, with a request for their reconsideration and further communication, 

 and have also been largely distributed at home to every member of our own 

 Council, and the Committee of Recommendations, and to each member of the 

 Council and Physical Committee of the Royal Society, which, conjointly with 

 ourselves, memorialized Government for establishment of the observatories. 



la addition to the valuable matter thus communicated, I am happy to add, 

 that several of the distinguished foreigners in question have responded to our 

 invitation, and that in consequence this meeting is honoured by the personal 

 presence of M. Kupffer, the Director-General of the Russian System of Mag- 

 netic and Meteorological Observation ; of M. Ermann, the celebrated circum- 

 navigator and mcterologist ; of Baron von Senftenberg, the founder of the 

 Astronomical, Magnetic, and Meteorological Observatory of Senftenberg ; of 

 M. Kred, the director of the Imperial Observatory at Prague ; and of M. 

 Boguslawski, director of the Royal Prussian Observatory of Breslau, all of 

 whom have come over for the express purpose of affording us the benefit of 

 their advice and experience in this discussion. To all the conferences be- 

 tween these eminent foreigners and our own Magnetic and Meteorological 

 Committee, and of such of our own members present as have taken any direct 

 theoretical or practical interest in the subjects, all the members of our Com- 

 mittee of Recommendations will have free access for the purpose of enabling 

 them fully to acr^uaint themselves with the whole bearing of the case, and 



the arguments used respecting all the questions to be discussed, so that when 

 the subject comes to be referred to them, as it must be if the opinion of the 

 conference should be favourable to the continuance of the system, they may 

 be fully prepared to make up their minds on it. 



Pliysical Observatories. 



I will not say one word from this chair which can have the appearance rtf 

 in any way anticipating the conclusion which the conference thus organized 

 may come to, or the course to be adopted in consequence. But I will take 

 this opportunity of stating my ideas generally on the position to be assumed 

 by this Association and by other scientific bodies in making demands on the 

 national purse for scientific purposes. And I will also state, quite irrespec- 

 tive of the immediate question of magnetic co-operation, and therefore of 

 the fate of this particular measure, what I conceive to be the objects which 

 might be accomplished, and ought to be aimed at in the establishment of 

 PHYSICAL OBSERVATORIES, as part of the integrant institutions of each nation 

 calling itself civilized, and as its contribution to Terrestrial Physics. 



It is the pride and boast of an Englishman to pay his taxes cheerfully when 

 he feels assured of their application to great and worthy objects. And as 

 civilization advances, we feel constantly more and more strongly, that, after 

 the great objects of national defence, the stability of our institutions, the due 

 administration of justice, and the healthy maintenance of our social state, are 

 provided for, there is no object greater and more noble — none more worthy 

 of national effort than the furtherance of Science. Indeed, there is no surer 

 test of the civilization of an age or nation than the degree in which this con- 

 viction is felt. Among Englishmen it has been for a long time steadily in- 

 creasing, and may now be regarded as universal among educated men of all 

 classes. No government, and least of all a British government, can be in- 

 sensible to the general prevalence of a sentiment of this kind ; and it is our 

 good fortune, and has been so for several years, to have a government, no 

 matter what its denomination as respects society, impressible with such con- 

 siderations, and really desirous to aid the forward struggle of intellect, by- 

 placing at its disposal the material means of its advances. 



But to do so with eflfect, it is necessary to be thoroughly well informed. 

 The mere knowledge that such a disposition exists, is sufficient to surround 

 those in power with every form of extravagant pretension. And even if this 

 were rot so, the number of competing claims, which cannot be all satisfied, 

 can only harass and bewilder, unless there be somewhere seated a discriminat- 

 ing and selecting judgment, which, among many important claims, shall fix 

 upon the most important, and urge them with the weight of well-established 

 character. I know not where such a selecting judgment can be so confi- 

 dently looked for as in the great scientific bodies of the country, each in its 

 own department, and in this Association, constituted, in great measure, out 

 of, and so representing them all, and numbering besides, among its members, 

 abundance of men of excellent science and enlightened minds nho belong 

 to none of them. The constitution of such a body is the guarantee both for 

 the general soundness of its recommendations, and for the due weighing of 

 their comparative importance, should ever the claims of diflferent branches of 

 science come into competition with each other. 



lu performing this most important office of suggesting channels through 

 which the fertilizing streams of national munificence can be most usefully 

 conveyed over the immense and varied fields of scientific culture, it becomes 

 us, in the first place, to be so fully impressed with a sense of duty to the 

 great cause for which we are assembled, as not to hesitate for an instant in 

 making a recommendation of whose propriety we are satisfied, on the mere 

 ground that the aid required is of great and even of unusual magnitude. And 

 on the other hand, keeping within certain reasonable limits of total amount, 

 which each individual must estimate for himself, and which it would be un- 

 wise and indeed impossible to express in terms, it will be at once felt that 

 econtimi/ in ashing is quite as high a " distributive virtue" as economy in 

 granting, and that every pound recommended unnecessarily is so much cha- 

 racter thrown away. I make these observations because the principles they 

 contain cannot be too frequently impressed, and by no means because I con- 

 sider them them to have been overstepped in any part of our conduct hitherto. 

 In the next place, it should be borne in mind that, in recommending to 

 Government, not a mere grant of money, but a scientific enterprise or a national 

 establishment, whether temporary or permanent, not only is it our duty so 

 to place it before them that its grounds of recommendation shall be tho- 

 roughly intelligible, but that its whole proposed extent shall be seen — or at 

 least if they cannot be, that it should be clearly stated to be the possible 

 commencement of something more extensive — and besides, that the printing 

 and publication of results should, in every such case, be made an express 

 part of the recommendation. And, again, we must not forget that our in- 

 terest in the matter does not cease with such publication. It becomes our 

 dniy to forward, by every encouragement in our power, the due considera- 

 tion and scientific discussion of results so procured — to urge it upon the 

 science of our own country and of Europe, and to aid from our own re- 

 sources those who may be willing to charge themselves with their analysis, 

 and to direct or execute the numerical computations or graphical projection? 

 it may involve. This is actually the predicainent in which we stand, in re- 

 ference to the immense mass of data already accumulated by the magnetic 

 and meteorological observatories. Let the science of England, and especially 

 the rising and vigorous mind which is pressing onward to distinction, gird 

 itself to the work of grappling with this mass. Let it not be said that we 

 are always to look abroad whenever industry and genius are required to ait 

 in union for the discussioa of great masses of raw observation. Let us take 



