1846.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



301 



take the most decided objection, and to which I will wholly confine my 

 remarks. 



It was ia your number for October 1845 that I believe this strange 

 charge was first made, and on the same page you refuse to allow any anim- 

 adversions on Mr. TurnbuU's writings— merely from private reasons affect- 

 ing that person. It must have escaped your notice, at the time of writins; 

 that interdict, that you had just marked for press a communication from 

 him which casts a serious imputation upon the memory of a distinguished 

 geometer and truly good man, whose name is justly endeared to the en- 

 gineering profession. 



Now it appears lo me that notwithstanding any private considerations 

 affecting Mr. Turnbull, you and the public are entitled to demand of him 

 his evidences of the truth of the statement which he makes respecting Dr. 

 Gregory. Mere allegation in such a case is not enough from any man — 

 from Mr. Turnbull certainly not. The question is one between Dr. Gre- 

 gory's honesty and Mr. TurnbuU's veracity : it is a question of character, 

 and must not be slurred over as one of no moment. Originality is in this 

 case a question of such minor importance as not to deserve a single thought, 

 except so far as regards its decision upon a question of personal character. 

 I at once apprize Mr. Turnbull that his explanation will be submitted to 

 a scrutiny so rigid, that it will be desirable that he attend more closely to 

 strict accuracy than usual : for the character of public men, and especially 

 of such men as Dr. Gregory, is public property, and will be guarded with 

 corresponding vigilance. 



Pending Mr. TurnbuU's proofs that Dr. Gregory appropriated his dis- 

 coveries " without acknowledgment of the source from which they were 

 derived," I only claim that due weight shall be given to the admitted charac- 

 ters and known talents of the accuser and the accused : — and that with this 

 shall be coupled a recollection of the triviality of the scientific part of the 

 •question at issue. 



I am. Sir, your obedient servant, 



ViNDEX. 



September 15, 1846. 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



The British Associaton for the Advancement of Science held its annual 

 meeting at Southampton during the past month. The President's address 

 appears on another page. The following report contains merely a selec- 

 tion of those parts of the sectional proceedings most interesting to the 

 engineer. The proceedings of the mechanical section are the most fully 

 noticed, and are followed by some editorial notes. The report will be con- 

 cluded next month. 



On Thursday, Sept. 10, the General Committee met in the Town Hall 

 over the Bargate, Sir John Herschel in the chair. After the minutes of 

 the committee meetings, Cambridge, were confirmed. Colonel Sabine read 

 the following Report of the Council, being the account of their proceed- 

 ings since June, 1845 : 



Report of the Council to the General Committee. 



1. The Council have the very satisfactory duty to perform of reporting 

 to the General Committee that the Resolutions of the Magnetical and Me- 

 teorological Conference, adopted by the General Committee at Cambridge 

 on the 22th June, 1845, were submitted to the Right Hon. Sir Robert 

 Peel, Bart., by the president, Sir John Herschel, Bart., accompanied by 

 a communication from the Marquis of Northampton, president of the 

 Royal Society, conveying the concurrence of that body in the recommenda- 

 tions contained therein : that they received a very favourable consideration 

 from her Majesty's Government, and that the recommendations connected 

 ■with the British observations both at home and in the colonies are in pro- 

 gress of being carried out. Tbe resolutions relating to the East Indian 

 observations and surveys have met with an equally favourable reception 

 from the Hon. Court of Directors of the East India Company, and the 

 recommendations which they contained have been approved and sanction- 

 ed. In accordance with the resolutions passed at Cambridge, therefore, 

 the Magnetic Observatory at Greenwich is permanently continued upon 

 the most extensive and efficient scale. The magnetical and meteorological 

 observations are constituted a permanent branch of the duties of the As- 

 tronomical Observatories at the Cape of Good Hope, Bombay, and Ma- 

 dras, and arrangements are in progress for making them also a permanent 

 branch of the obserations to be made at the Observatory at Paramatta. 

 The detachment of the Royal Artillery, by whom the duties at the Cape of 

 Good Hope have been hitherto performed, has been relieved by a perma- 

 nent incretise in the civil strength of the Astronomical Observatory ; and 

 in like manner the officers of the Royal Navy and the marines who now 

 form the establishment of the Observatory at Van Dieman's Island, will 

 be relieved as soon as the establishment at Paramatta is completed. The 

 Ordnance observatories at Toronto and St Helena are to be continued 

 until the close of 1848. 



With reference to the recommendations relating to magnetic surveys, a 

 magnetic survey of the Indian Seas, by Lieut. Elliot of the Bengal En- 

 gineers, has received the sanction of the Hon. Court of Directors of the 

 East India Company, and arrangements are in progress for its commence- 

 ment. Also, early in the present summer Lieut. Moore, of the Royal 



Navy, proceeded under the direction of the Lords of the lAdmiralty to 

 Hudson's Bay, in one of the vessels belonging to the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany, for the purpose of connecting the observations of the Canadian Sur- 

 vey with those which the expedition under Sir John Franklin is making in 

 the seas to the north of the American Continent. 



In accordance with the recommendation concerning the co-operation of 

 foreign magnetical and meteorological observatories, communications were 

 made, on the application of the president, by the Earl of Aberdeen, her 

 Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Aflfairs, to the govern- 

 ments of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Belgium, from all of whom very 

 favourable replies have been received. 



2. The resolution passed by the General Committee to the effect "That 

 it is highly desirable to encourage by specific pecuniary reward the im- 

 provement of self-according magnetical and meteorological apparatus, and 

 that the Presidents of the Royal Society and of the British Association be 

 requested to solicit the favourable consideration of her Majesty's govern- 

 ment to this subject,' has been brought under the notice of government, 

 and favourably received, and arrangements have been made to carry the 

 recommendation into effect. Whilst on this subject, the Council has also 

 much pleasure in noticing that the President and Council of the Royal 

 Society have granted £50 from the Wollaston Donation Fund, to assist in 

 the construction of apparatus devised by Mr. Ronalds for the self-registry 

 of magnetical and meteorological instruments, and which apparatus is in 

 progress of completion at the observatory of the British Association at 

 Kew. The Council are persuaded that the CJeneral Committee will view 

 with satisfaction this co-operation of the Royal Society and British Asso- 

 ciation for objects common to both, and for which the observatory at Kevr 

 furnishes a very convenient locality. 



3. The General Committee at Cambridge having passed a resolution, 

 " That it be referred to the Council to take into consideration, before the 

 next meeting of the Association, the expediency of discontinuing the Kew 

 Observatory," the Council appointed a committee, consisting of the Pre- 

 sident (Sir John Herschel), the Dean of Ely, the Astronomer Royal, Pro- 

 fessors Graham and Wheatstone, and Lieut.Col. Sabine, to collect informa- 

 tion on the scientific purposes which the Kew Observatory has served, and 

 on its general usefulness to science and to the Association. The report of 

 the committee was as follows : — 



"Kew Observatory, May 7, 1846.— Present : Sir J. F. W. Herschel, 

 Bart., the Astronomer Royal, Professors Graham and Wheatstone, and 

 Lieut.-Col. Sabine. After an attentive examination of the present state of 

 the establishment, and of other matters connected therewith, the following 

 resolutions were unanimously adopted, viz. : 



" That it be recommended to the General Committee that the establish- 

 ment at Kew, the occupancy of which has been granted by her Majesty 

 to the British Association, be maintained in its present state of efficiency. 

 1. Because it affords, at a very inconsiderable expense, a local habitation 

 to the Association, and a convenient depository for its books, manuscripts, 

 and apparatus. 2. Because it has afforded to members of the Associatioa 

 the means of prosecuting many physical inquiries which otherwise would 

 not have been entered upon. 3. Because the establishment has already 

 become a point of interest to scientific foreigners, several of whom have 

 visited it. 4. Because the grant of the occupancy of the building by her 

 Majesty, at the earnest request of the British Association, is an instance 

 of her Majesty's interest in, and approval of, the objects of the Associa- 

 tion. 5. Because, if the Association at the present time relinquish the 

 establishment, it will probably never again be available for the purposes of 

 science. 6. Because it appears, both from the publications of the British 

 Association, and from the records in progress at the establishment, that a 

 great amount of electrical and meteorological observation has been and 

 continues to be made, and that a systematic inquiry into the intricate sub- 

 ject of atmospheric electricity has been carried out by Mr. Ronalds, which 

 has been productive of very material improvements in that subject, and 

 has in effect furnished the model of the processes conducted at the Royal 

 Observatory: and because these inquiries are still in progress under local 

 circumstances extremely favourable. 7. Because other inquiries into the 

 working of self-registering apparatus, both meteorological and magnetical, 

 are in actual progress at the establishment, and that there is a distinct 

 prospect of the facilities it affords being speedily much more largely pro- 

 fited by. 8. Because the access to the observatory from London to mem- 

 bers of the Association will shortly be greatly improved by railroads, and 

 because the local facilities and conveniences of the establishment have 

 been very greatly enhanced by alterations in its relations to the Commis- 

 sioners of Woods and Forests." 



" J. F. W. Herschel, Chairman." 

 In laying before the General Committee the report received from this 

 committee, the Council desires to add the expression of its own opinion in 

 conformity with its resolutions. 



4. The Council has received a letter from the honorary secretary of the 

 Literary and Philosophical Institution at Cheltenham, expressing on the 

 part of the members of that Institution deep regret that circumstances have 

 arisen which render uncertain their being able to give the British Associa- 

 tion that welcome and generous reception which it would be their desire to 

 do, and which they last year felt they could have done had the Associatioa 

 been so circumstanced as to have accepted tbe invitation for the summer of 

 1846. 



5. The Council has been informed by a letter from W. R. Grove, Esq., 

 F.R.S., that a deputation has been appointed by the Mayor and Corpora- 



39 



