lxiv REPORT — 1865. 



their efforts to accomplish purposes which we approve. In all instances our 

 elastic system responds quickly to pressure, and returns the friendly impulse. 

 If we look back on the work of previous years, it is easy to mark the special 

 action of the Association in fields which hardly could be entered by any other 

 adventurers. 



Many of the most valuable labours of which we are now reaping the fruits, 

 were undertaken in consequence of the reports on special branches of Science 

 which appear in the early volumes of our Transactions — reports in which 

 particular data were requested for confirming or correcting known genera- 

 lizations, or for establishing new ones. Thus a passage in Professor Airy's 

 report on Physical Astronomy* first turned the attention of Adams to the 

 mathematical vision of Neptune ; Lubbock's Report on Tides f came before 

 the experimental researches and reductions, which since 1834 have so often 

 engaged the attention of Whewell and Airy and Haughton, with results so 

 valuable and so suggestive of further undertakings. Among these results 

 may be placed additional knowledge of the probable depth of the channels of 

 the sea. For before the desire of telegraphic communication with America 

 had caused the bed of the North Atlantic to be explored by soundings to a 

 depth seldom exceeding three miles, there was reason to conclude from the 

 investigations of Whewell on Cotidal Lines J that a depth of nine miles was 

 attained in the Sonth Atlantic, and from the separate computations of Aiiy 

 and Haughton that a somewhat greater depth occurred in a part of the course 

 of the tide-wave which washes the coast of Ireland§. The greater portion of 

 the sea-bed is within reach of soundings directed by the superior skill and 

 greater perseverance of modern scientific navigators ; a depth of six miles is 

 said to have been reached in one small tract of the North Atlantic ; depths of 

 nine or ten miles in the deepest channels of the sea are probable from consi- 

 dering the general proportion which is likely to obtain between sea-depths 

 and mountain-tops. Thus the data are gradually being collected for a com- 

 plete survey of the bed of the sea, including among other things information, 

 at least, concerning the distribution of animal and vegetable life beneath tbe 

 waters. 



Waves — their origin, the mechanism of their motion, their velocity, their 

 elevation, the resistance they offer to vessels of given form, these subjects 

 have been firmly kept in view by the Association, since first Professor Challis || 

 reported on the mathematical problems they suggest, and Sir J. Robison and 

 Mr. Scott Russell undertook to study them experimentally^. Out of this in- 

 quiry has come a better knowledge of the forms which ought to be given to 

 the ' lines ' of ships, followed by swifter passages across the sea, both by 

 sailing vessels and steamers, of larger size and greater lengths than were ever 

 tried before**. 



One of the earliest subjects to acquire importance in our thoughts, was the 

 unexplored region of meteorology laid open in Professor J. Forbes's Reportsft. 

 Several of the points to which he called attention have been successfully at- 

 tained. The admirable instruments of Whewell, Osier, and Robinson have 

 replaced the older and ruder anemometers, and are everywhere in full opera- 



* Reports of the British Association for 1832, p. 154. Laplace had indeed observed 

 that " the planet Uranus and his satellites, lately discovered, give reason to suspect the 

 existence of some planets not yet observed ;" thereby encouraging the search for new dis- 

 coveries in our own system. (Exp. du Syst. du Monde, 1799, 4to, p. 350.) 



t Reports of the British Association, 1832. % Trans, of Roy. Soc. 1833. 



§ Trans, of Roy. Irish Acad. 1855. || Reports of the British Association, 1833, 1836. 



1 Ibid. 1837 and following years. ** Ibid. 1840-1843. 



tt Ibid. 1832-1840. 



