214 REPORT — 1869. 



and Ireland is far from suflScient for the vigorous prosecution of Physical 

 Research. 



II. It is universally admitted that scientific investigation is productive of 

 enormous advantages to the community at large ; but these advantages can- 

 not be duly reaped without largely extending and systematizing Physical 

 Research. Though of opinion that greatly increased facilities are undoubt- 

 edly required, your Committee do not consider it expedient that they should 

 attempt to define categorically how these facilities should be provided, for the 

 following reason : — 



Any scheme of scientific extension should be based on a fuU and accurate 

 knowledge of the amount of aid now given to science, of the sources from 

 which that aid is derived, and of the functions performed by individuals and 

 institutions receiving such aid. Your Committee have found it impossible, 

 with the means and powers at their command, to acquire this knowledge. 

 A formal inquiry, including the inspection of records to which your Committee 

 have not access, and the examination of witnesses whom they are not em- 

 powered to summon, alone can elicit the information that is required ; and, as 

 the whole question of the relation of the State to Science, at present in a 

 very unsettled and unsatisfactory position, is involved, they urge that a Eoyal 

 Commission alone is competent to deal with the subject. 



Your Committee hold that this inquiry is of a character sufficiently im- 

 portant to the nation, and sufficiently wide in its scope, to demand the use of 

 the most ample and most powerful machinery that can be brought to bear 

 upon it. 



Your Committee therefore submit, as the substance of their Report, the 

 recommendation that the fuU influence of the British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science should at once be exerted to obtain the appointment of 

 a Royal Commission to consider — 



1. The character and value of existing institutions and facilities for 



scientific investigation, and the amount of time and money devoted 

 to such purposes. 



2. What modifications or augmentations of the means and facilities that 



are at present available for the maintenance and extension of 

 science are requisite ; and, 



3. In what manner these can be best supplied. 



On Emission, Absorption, and Reflection of Obscure Heat. 

 By Prof. Magnus*. 



There was a time when heat was considered to be very different from light. 

 Now, however, we are persuaded that the only difference between them is the 

 length of the waves by which they are produced and propagated. Therefore 

 I thought that the weU-kuown laws of the radiation and absorption of light 

 must also exist for heat. I followed in these thoughts Mr. Balfour Stewart, 

 who, ten years ago, and several years before Kirchhoff and Bunsen had pro- 

 pounded their theory, published a paper in which he developed nearly the 

 same ideas for heat as these philosophers did for light. 



I wiU endeavour to give some of the results at which I arrived; but 



* A communication ordered to be printed in extenso among the Eeports. 



