TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 201 



few exceptions; the eeutences arc niTangod strictly in accordanco witli the English 

 idiom. 



On the Geoc/raphical Science of Arctic Explorations, and the advantage of con- 

 tinuing it. By Captain W. P. Snow. 



Remarlcs on a Proposed Railway across the Malay Peninsula. By H, "Wise. 

 It_ appeared that this railway would save a distance of about 700 miles, by con- 

 necting the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean with the Gulf of Siani and China and 

 Japan Seas, and precluding the necessity of pm-suing the circuitous and precarious 

 navigation of the Straits of Malacca. The government of Siam had sanctioned the 

 construction of the railway, for the praiseworthy reason that it was connected with 

 the adyancemcnt of civilization. The length of ithe railway would not exceed forty- 

 five miles, and the transit of mails and passengers overland from the Bay of Bengal 

 to the Gulf of Siam, or vice versa, would be accomplished in two hours. The 

 present passage was made by steam-vessels in four or five daj^s, but wa.s seldom 

 performed by sailing vessels in less than three weeks. The experience of Major 

 Trernenheere, with respect to the proposed undertaking, showed that no great 

 physical difficulties would have to be overcome in the construction of this line. 

 The line would greatly facilitate the extension of the telegraph to China, by afford- 

 ing protection to the stations on the line. The cable from Kangoon, along Cochin 

 China, to Hongkong would be liable to far less casualties than that by the Straits 

 route. The district through which the line would pass contained coal, tin-ore, and 

 valuable natiu-al productions. In the neighbourhood M^as an abimdance of natural 

 woods. The entire area of the Malay Peninsula was about 83,000 square miles. 

 The importance of this railway to British policy and progress in the East was in- 

 calcidable. 



Some Account of the Romans in Britain. By Di\ R. Wollasion. 



STATISTICAL SCIENCE. 



Address of "William Newmarch, F.R.S., President of the Section. 

 He said there was some danger at this time that imdue importance should be 

 attached to what had been achieved in phvsical discovery. Euoituous as had been 

 our achievements— beholding, as they did", the prominent efiects produced by rail- 

 ways, tubular bridges, ocean steamers, telegraphs, and rifled cannon, — there was 

 some danger— and it was not a small one— lest we should attach excessive and 

 imdue importance to the obligations which society owed to these achievements 

 and those discoveries, gi-eat as they were. A glance at the history of the last 

 thirty years would show that there had been in operation ecoaomical forces, the 

 effects of which were hardly of less importance. Sound doctrines had been ap- 

 plied_ to foreign and inland trade, taxation, education, sanitary science, prevention 

 of crime, and the poor-laws. Economical sciencie had ceased to be hypothetical, 

 and had become experimental. This, the prominent fact in the history of the last 

 thirty years, was due to the spirit of close scrutiny which had been carried into 

 everj-thing, including history, archseology^, literature, and politics. It had been 

 mentioned as a reproach to economical science, that it was not purely a science, 

 but partook largely of the nature of an art. He must confess that this was scarcely 

 a reproach ; and the remark arose from a hasty ^-iew of the real diflerence be- 

 tween science and art. Science was really a collection of general principles; 

 but all sciences were more or less arts. Astrononi}', for example, led to the 

 production o£ nautical almanacs; and physiology to hospitals, sanitary laws, 

 and precautions against fire. Economic science must be essentially an art, inas- 

 much as its smallest problems involved human interests, affections, and passions ; 

 and the advances which had been made of late years arose from regarding it both 

 as a science and an art. There was a great want of an accurate and* convenient 



