1845.1 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



201 



example from wliat we see poinj; on in Germany, where a Dove, a Kamtz and 

 a Mahlman are battling with the meteorology, a Gauss, a Weber and an 

 Ermann with the magnetism of the world. The mind of Britain is equal to 

 the task — its mathematical strength, developed of late years to an unprece- 

 dented extent, is competent to any theoretical analysis or technical combi- 

 nation. .Nothing is wanting hut the resolute and persevering devotion of 

 tindistracted thought to a single object, and that will not he long wanting 

 when once the want is declared and dwelt upon, and the high prize of public 

 estimation held forth to those who fairly and freely adventure themselves in 

 this career. Never was there a time when the mind of the country, as well 

 as its resources of every kind, answered so fully and readily to any call rea- 

 tonable in itself and properly urged upon it. Do we call (or fads ! they are 

 poured upon us in such profusion as for a time to overwhelm us, like the 

 Roman maid who sank under the load of wealth she called down upon her- 

 self. Witness the piles of unreduced meteorological observations which load 

 our shelves and archives ; witness the immense and admirably arranged cata- 

 logues of stars which have been and still are pouring in from all quarters 

 upon our astronomy so soon as the want of extensive catalogtics came to be 

 felt and declared. What we now want is ihnught, steadily directed to single 

 objects, with a determinalion to eschew the besetting evil of our age — the 

 temptation to squander and dilute it upon a thousand different lines of en- 

 quiry. The philosopher must be wedded to bis subject if he would see the 

 children and the children's children of his intellect flourishing in honour 

 around him. 



The establishment of astronomical observatories has been, in all ages and 

 natione, the first public recognition of science as an integrant part of civi- 

 lisation. Astronomy, however, is only one out of many sciences, which can 

 he advanced by a combined system of observation and calculation carried on 

 uninterruptedly ; where, in the way of experiment, man has no control, and 

 whose only handle is the continual observation of Nature as it developes 

 itself under our eyes, and a constant collateral endeavour to concentrate the 

 records of that observation into empirical laws in the first instance, and to 

 ascend from those laws to theories. Speaking in an utilitarian point of view, 

 the globe which wc inhabit is quite as important a subject of scientific en- 

 quiry as the stars. We depend for our bread of life and every comfort on 

 ita climates and seasons, on the movements of its winds and waters. We 

 guide ourselves over the ocean, when astronomical observations fail, by our 

 knowledge of the laws of its magnetism ; we learn thesublimest 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 .\3tronomy itself. Terrestrial Physics, therefore, form a subject every way 

 worthy to be associated with astronomy as a matter of universal interest and 

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

 way in which Astronomy itself has been — by permanent establishments keep- 

 ing up an unbroken series of observation ; — but with this difference, that 

 whereas the chief data of Astronomy might be supplied by the establishment 

 of a very few well worked observatories properly disposed in the two hemi- 

 spheres — the gigantic problems of meteorology, magnetism, and oceanic 

 movements can only be resolved by a far more extensive geographical distri- 

 bution of observing stations, and by a steady, persevering, systematic attack, 

 to which every civdized nation, as it has a direct interest in the result, ought 

 to feel bound fro contribute its contingent. 



I trust that the time is not far distant when such will be the case, and 

 when no nation calling itself civilized will deem its institutions complete 

 without the establishment of a permanent physical observatory, with at least 

 so much provision for astronomical and magnetic observation as shall suffice 

 to make it a local centre of reference for geographical determinations and 

 trigonometrical and magnetic surveys— which latter, if we are ever to attain 

 to a theory of the secular changes of the earth's magnetism, will have to be 

 repeated at intervals of twenty or thirty years for a long while to come. Ra- 

 pidly progressive as our colonies are, and emulous of the civilization of the 

 mother country, it seems not too much to hope from them, that they should 

 take upon themselves, each according to its means, the establishment and 

 maintenance of such institutions both for their own advantage and improve- 

 ment, and as their contributions to the science of the world. A noble ex- 

 ample has been set them in this respect, within a very few months, by our 

 eolnnv of British Guiana, in which a society recently constituted, in the best 

 spirit of British cn-operation, has established and endowed an observatory 

 of this very description, furnishing it partly from their own resonrces and 

 partly by the aid of government with astronomical, magnetic and meteorolo- 

 gical instruments, and engaging a competent observer at a handsome salary 

 to work the establishment — an example which deserves to be followed where- 

 ever British enterprise has struck root and flourished. 



The perfectly unbroken and normal registry of all the meteorological and 

 magnetic elements — and of tidal fluctuations where the locality admits— 

 would form the staple huisness of every such observatory, and, according to 

 it« means of observation, periodical phenomena of every description would 

 claim attention, for which the list supplied by M. Quetelet, which extends 

 not merely to the phases of inanimate life, but to their effects on the animal 

 and vegetable creation, will leave us at no loss beyond the difficulty of selec- 

 tion. The division of phenomena which magnetic observation has suggested, 

 into periodical, secular, and occasional, will apply mutatis mutandis lo every 

 department. Under the head of occasional phenomena, storms, magnetic 

 disturbances, auroras, extraordinary tides, earthquake movements, meteors, 

 &c., wou'd supply an ample fiebl of observation — while among the secular 

 «hangfcs, indication) of the varying level of land and tea would necessitate 



the establishment of permanent marks, and the reference to them of the 

 actual mean sea level which would emerge from a series of tidal observations, 

 carried round a complete jieriod of the moon's nodes with a certainty capable 

 of detecting the smallest changes. 



'Hie abridgement of the merely mechanical work of such observatories by 

 self-registering apparatus, is a subject which cannot be too strongly insisted 

 on. Neither has the invention of instruments for superseding the necessity 

 of much arithmetical calculation by the direct registry of total effects re- 

 ceived anything like the attention it deserves. Considering the perfection 

 to which mechanism has arrived in all its departments, these contrivances 

 promise to become of immense utility. The more the merely mechanical 

 part of the observer's duty can be alleviated, the more will he be enabled to 

 apply himself to the theory of bis subject, and to perform what I conceive 

 ought to be regarded as the most important of all his duties, and which in 

 time will come to he universally so considered — I mean the systematic de- 

 duction from the registered observations of the mean values and local co-efll- 

 cients of diurnal, menstrual, and annual change. These deductions, in the 

 case of permanent institutions, ought not, if possible, to be thrown upon the 

 public, and their effective execution would be the best and most honourable 

 test of the zeal and ability of their directors. 



A'ecessiti/ of Classification of Observatories. 



Nothing damps the ardour of an observer like the absence of an object ap- 

 preciable and attainable by himself. One of my predecessors in this chair 

 has well remarked, that a man may as well keep a register of his dreams as 

 of the weather, or any other set of daily phenomena, if the spirit of group- 

 ing, combining, and eliciting results be absent. It can hardly be expected 

 indeed, that, observers of facts of this nature should themselves reason from 

 them up to the highest theories. For that their position unfits them, as they 

 see but locally and partially. But no other class of persons stands in any- 

 thing like so favourable a position for working out the first elementary laws 

 of phenomena, and referring them to their immediate points of dependence. 

 Those who witness their daily progress, with that interest which a direct ob- 

 ject in view inspires, have in this respect an infinite advantage over those 

 who have to go over the same ground in the form of a mass of dry figures. 

 \ thousand suggestions arise, a thousand improvements occur — a spirit of 

 interchange of ideas is generated, the surrounding district is laid under con- 

 tribution for the elucidation of innumerable points, where a chain of corres- 

 pomling observation is desirable ; and what would otherwise be a scene of 

 irksome routine, becomes a school of physical science. 

 Nautical and Colonial Observations. 



Such a spirit must he excited by the institution of provincial and 

 colonial scientific societies, like that which I have just had occasion to 

 mention. Sea as well as land observations are, however, equally required for 

 the efl'ectual working out of these great physical problems. A ship is an 

 itinerant observatory ; and, in spite of its instability, one which enjoys seve- 

 ral eminent advantages — in the uniform level and nature of the surface, 

 which eliminate a multitude of causes of disturbance and uncertainty, to 

 which land observations are liable. The exceeding precision with which 

 magnetic observations can be made at sea, has been abundantly proved in the 

 Antarctic Voyage of Sir James Ross, by which an invaluable mass of data 

 has been thus secured to science. That voyage has also conferred another 

 and most important accession to our knowledge in the striking discovery of 

 a permanently low barometric pressure in high south latitudes over the whole 

 Antarctic ocean — a pressure actually inferior by considerably more than an 

 inch of mercury, to what is found between the 1'ropics. .4 fact so novel and 

 remarkable will of course give rise to a variety of speculations as to its cause ; 

 and I anticipate one of the most interesting discussions which have ever 

 taken place in our Physical Section, should that great circumnavigator favour 

 us, as 1 hope he will, with a viru voce account of it. The voyage now hap- 

 pily commenced under the most favourable auspices for the further prosecu- 

 tion of our Arctic discoveries under Sir John Franklin, will bring to the test 

 of direct experiment a mode of accounting for this extraordinary phenomenon 

 thrown out by Colonel Sabine, which, if reahzed, will necessitate a complete 

 revision of our whole system of barometric observation in high latitudes, and 

 a total reconstruction of all our knowledge of the laws of pressure in regions 

 where excessive coid prevails. This, with the magnetic survey of the Arctic 

 seas, and the not improbable solution of the great geographical problem 

 which forms the chief object of the expedition, will furnish a sufficient an- 

 swer to those, if any there be, who regard such voyages as useless. Let us 

 hope and pray, that it may please Providence to shield him and his brave 

 companions from the many dangers of their enterprise, and restore them in 

 health and honour to their country. 



Death of Prof. Daniell. 

 I cannot quit this subject without reverting to and deploring the great loss 

 which science has recently sustained in the death of the late Prof. Daniell, 

 one of its most eminent and successful cultivators in this country. His work 

 on Meteorology is, if I mistake not, the first in which the distinction betweea 

 the aqueous and gaseous atmospheres, and their mutual independence, was 

 clearly and strongly insisted on as a highly influential clement in meteorolo- 

 gical theory. Every succeeding investigation has placed this in a clearer 

 light. In the hands of M. Dove, and more recently of Colonel Sabine, ii has 

 proved the means of accounting for some of Ihc most striking features in the 

 diurnal variations of the barometer. The continual generation of the aqueous 

 atmofphere at the Equator, and its destruction in high latitudes, furnishes a 



