lyili REPORT—1862. 
Owen’s Reports on Fossil Mammalia and Reptiles, with some other researches 
on Fossils. 
The remainder was principally devoted to the surveys and measurement, 
in 1838, of a level line for the purpose of determining the permanence of the 
relative level of sea and land, and the mean level of the Ocean; and to the 
procuring of drawings of the geological sections exposed in railroad operations 
before they are covered up—a work which was carried on from 1840 to 1844, 
when the drawings were deposited in the Museum of Practical Geology, and 
the further continuance of it handed over to the geological surveyors of that 
establishment. 
£2300 have been devoted to the carrying out of various important experi- 
mental investigations in relation to the Section of Mechanical Science. 
Of this sum £900 were paid between 1840 and 1844, in aid of a most 
important and valuable series of experiments on the Forms of Vessels, prin- 
cipally conducted by Mr. Scott Russell, in connexion with the experiments 
on Waves. ‘This investigation was ready for press in 1844, but it is greatly 
to be regretted that the great expense of printing and engraving it has 
hitherto prevented its publication. 
Nearly the same sum has given to us various interesting and instructive 
experiments and facts relating to steam-engines and steam-vessels, carried 
on by different Committees from 1838 to the present time; amongst which 
may be especially noted the application of the Dynamometric instruments of 
Morin, Poncelet, and Moseley, to ascertain the Duty of Steam-engines, from 
1841 to 1844. 
Experiments on the Strength of Materials, the relative strength of Hot and 
Cold Blast Iron, the effect of Temperature on their tensile strength, and on the 
effect of Concussion and Vibration on their internal constitution, carried on 
principally by our late President and by the late Mr. Eaton Hodgkinson, at 
different intervals from 1838 to 1856, have been aided by grants amounting 
to £400. 
The remainder of the sum above mentioned was principally devoted to the 
experimental determination of the value of Railway Constants, by Dr. Lardner 
and a Committee in 1838 and 1841. 
The Section of Botany, Zoology, and Physiology has absorbed about £1400, 
of which nearly £900 have been applied to Zoology, partly for the expense 
of Dredging Committees for obtaining specimens of Marine Zoology on our 
own coasts and in the Mediterranean and other localities—whose useful labours 
have been regularly reported from 1840 to 1861—but principally for zoolo- 
gical researches in different districts and countries. ’ 
In Botany may be remarked the labours of a Committee, consisting of 
Professors Daubeny and Henslow and others, formed in 1840, to make expe- 
riments on the preservation of Vegetative Powers in Seeds; who continued 
their work for sixteen successive years, reporting annually, and assisted by a 
sum of £100. The greatest age at which the seeds experimented upon was 
found to vegetate was about forty years. 
Another Committee, with Mr. Hunt, was engaged during seven years, from 
1841, in investigating the influence of coloured light on the germination of 
seeds and growth of plants. 
These are specimens of the admirable effect of the organization of our Asso~ 
ciation in stimulating and assisting with the funds the labours of investi- 
gators in new branches of experimental inquiry. 
It would occupy too much time to particularize a variety of interesting 
researches in the remaining sections of Chemistry and in the sections of 
