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RESEARCH 



In transmitting Chevalier Bunsen's letter to the Court 

 of Directors, the Royal Society took occasion to 

 express their strong opinion of the importance of 

 completing this survey, and their belief in the com- 

 petency of the Messrs. Schlagintweit for such employ- 

 ment. These gentlemen, having been appointed 

 accordingly by the Court of Directors, and supplied 

 with the necessary instruments, in the use of which 

 they were specially instructed at the Kew Observa- 

 tory, sailed for India in 1855, and continued their 

 observations through the years 1856, 1857, and 1858, 

 during which they determined the magnetic elements 

 at sixty-nine stations in British India, including some 

 stations north of the Himalayan chain. 



Twenty years having elapsed since the former 

 survey of the British Islands (referred to in the first 

 paragraph) was made, the British Association deemed 

 that a sufficient interval had passed to make a 

 repetition of the survey desirable, with a view to 

 the investigation of the effects of the secular change 

 which the magnetic lines are known to undergo. 

 Accordingly, at the meeting of the Association in 

 1857, the same men who had made the survey in 

 1837 were requested to undertake a fresh survey, 

 and did so. Among later works, that referred 

 to in the list of grants (Appendix I) under 

 the heading of ' Magnetism, Terrestrial/ for the 

 years 1886-88 represents the work of a com- 

 mittee, of which Balfour Stewart was the most active 

 member until his death, which collected an important 

 series of reports and opinions on the methods of 

 comparison and reduction of magnetic observations. 

 The Falmouth Observatory, to which, as the same 

 list shows, grants were made over a period of nearly 



