180 



RESEARCH 



Islands, executed in 1834-38 by a committee of 

 members of the British Association, acting upon an 

 enlarged view of a suggestion brought before the 

 Association in 1833. At the meeting of the Associa- 

 tion in 1838, a resolution was passed recommending 

 to H.M. Government the equipment of a naval 

 expedition for the purpose of making a magnetic 

 survey in the southern portions of the Atlantic and 

 Pacific Oceans. This recommendation, communi- 

 cated to and concurred in by the Royal Society, gave 

 rise to the voyage of [Sir] James Clark Ross to the 

 Antarctic in 1 839-43, * A proposition for a magnetic 

 survey of the British possessions in North America 

 was brought before the Association in a report pub- 

 lished in 1837, and being subsequently submitted 

 to the Committee of Physics of the Royal Society, 

 received in 1841 the recommendation of the Royal 

 Society to H.M. Government. The survey, having 

 been authorised by the Treasury, was carried on in 

 connexion with the magnetic observatory at Toronto, 

 under the direction of the Superintendent of the 

 Colonial Observatories, by Lieut. Lefroy. The 

 declination observations were reduced and co-ordi- 

 nated with similar observations made in the succession 

 of Arctic voyages between 1818 and 1855. The 

 survey of Sir James Ross in 1839-44 having left 

 a portion of the magnetic lines in the southern 

 hemisphere undetermined between the meridians 

 of and 125 E., an application was made in 1844 

 to H.M. Government by the Royal Society, to com- 

 plete this portion under the direction of the Superin- 

 tendent of the Colonial Observatories. This was 



1 See, further, Chapter VII, p. 213. 



