53 REPORTS OX THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



The affiliation which creates the Association our putative father does not 

 give it the right to enforce our obedience to its commands or its caprices 

 by any system of parental discipline any more than it implies that the 

 Association will be responsible for our maintenance. If we are children 

 we are emancipated children, earning our own subsistence and going our 

 own way. To drop the metaphor, I assert that it would be idle for this 

 Conference to attempt to lay down any hard-and-fast lines which every 

 Corresponding Society must follow. 



Within its legitimate province, however, there is mucli that this Con- 

 ference can do, much that these Conferences have already done. In the 

 free communication with each other which is here setup, in the discussion 

 of methods of working, in pointing out special subjects in which definite 

 and organised investigation is desirable, in learning what has been done 

 by such and such a Society, so as to avoid wasteful duplication and 

 repetition of work, there is ample material for conference. In the 

 excellent relations which such meetings as these create between those 

 who are engaged in the like pursuits and actuated by the same ambitions 

 there is an element of great value. ' Iron sharpeneth iron ; so a man 

 sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.' AVe who are now admitted to be 

 your associates, whose highest claim is that our Societies are ' formed for 

 the purpose of encouraging the study of science,' will leave this Con- 

 ference, I am persuaded, more than ever stimulated to do our utmost to 

 fulfil that purpose. 



At the conclusion of the Chairman's Address, the Report of the 

 Corresponding Societies Committee was read by the Secretary. It was 

 resolved to apply for a grant of 25/. 



Mr. W. Dale (Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society) 

 explained the method adopted by his Society for obtaining railway 

 tickets at reduced rates for members attending the field-meetings. 



Mr. Edward Kitto (Royal Cornwall JPolytechnic Society), after 

 expressing appreciation of the honour conferred ujDon his Society by being 

 placed on the list of affiliated Societies, reminded the Conference that the 

 Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society was the first ' Polytechnic' instituted 

 in the country. The most important jjermanent work of the Royal 

 Cornwall Polytechnic Society was the carrying on of the Falmouth 

 Meteorological and Magnetical Observatory. The Meteorological Obser- 

 vatory was one of the seven first-class observatories established in 1867 

 by the Meteorological Committee of the Royal Society, under whose con- 

 trol it had remained to the present time. The Magnetical Observatory 

 started regular records of magnetic declination and of horizontal and 

 vertical force in 1887 with a set of self-recording magnetographs furnished 

 by the Royal Society. That branch of the Falmouth Observatory work 

 was at pi-esent extremely important. The magnetic records at Kew 

 Observatory wei'e in measure vitiated by the effect of electric trams in 

 the neighbourhood, and as a consequence their results have not of late 

 been published in complete foi-m. The Falmouth magnetogi-aphs — happily 

 not so interfered with — were in full working order and furnished 

 complete returns whereby the continuity of magnetic records for the 

 Kingdom was maintained. Mr. Kitto said he would venture to promise 

 that his Committee would be prepared to present to the Association a 

 fairly complete set of the annual reports of the Royal CoruM-all Poly- 

 technic Society from its inceiition in 1833. 



