XXXVIli REPORT—1858. 
accommodations and Staff at the Meteorological Department of the Board 
of Trade, consented to the appointment of two additional clerks and of a 
working optician, to be permanently attached to that Department ; and, more- 
over, supplied more enlarged accommodations; so that, upon the whole, 
Admiral FitzRoy, who so ably presides over this Meteorological Depart- 
ment, expresses himself as satisfied with the present arrangements, and hope- 
ful as to the future success of an institution which cannot fail to be pro- 
ductive of vast benefit to science. 
We regret extremely that the application to the Government to send the 
Expedition to the Mackenzie River was unsuccessful ; but we anticipate an 
important accession to our scientific knowledge from the Expedition to the 
Zambesi River, which was sanctioned, and sent out under the able conduct 
of the enterprising and distinguished Livingstone, for this Expedition was 
well supplied with the necessary instruments properly tested at Kew, and 
comprises those who are fully competent to use them. 
We have been again in correspondence with Mr. Patterson, of Belfast, in 
reference to the cost of appointments of new Trustees to Museums and 
other Scientific Institutions. It appears that a clause in the Literary and 
Scientific Societies’ Act, extends the facilities given by the 13 and 14 Vict. 
c. 28, or the Religious Societies’ Act, to Scientific Societies; but that 
the clause giving such facilities applies to real estate only. There may be 
some technical difficulties in the way of including personalty, but the subject 
will not be lost sight of. 
The appointment of the Right Hon. Joseph Napier to the office of Lord 
Chancellor of Ireland, has unhappily caused another vacancy in our body. 
There are now therefore two vacancies, one of which we recommend should 
be supplied by the election of the Right Hon. Sir John Pakington, M.P. for 
Droitwich. 
A Memorial having been presented to the Government on the subject of 
the proposed severance from the British Museum of its Natural History Col- 
lections, signed by 114 persons comprising the most eminent promoters and 
cultivators of science, the same was moved for in the House of Commons by 
Sir Philip Grey Egerton and produced. We know of no measure which 
might be adopted by the Government or Legislature, which would inflict a 
deeper injury on science, than the removal of these Collections, if unhappily 
carried into effect. 
We remain of the same opinion which we expressed in our last Report, 
that no convenient opportunity has yet occurred to submit to the consider- 
ation of the Legislature the twelve Resolutions of the Council of the Royal 
Society; but we consider that it is difficult to over-estimate the importance 
of having ascertained and embodied in these Resolutions the opinions of the 
most distinguished living cultivators of science on its desiderata. They con- 
stitute a perpetual record to which reference may always be made by any 
Member of the Government or Legislature, who is sincerely desirous to pro- 
mote all such measures as tend to encourage scientific research, and by so 
doing to advance the most important interests of his country. 
WrotresLey, Chairman. 
September 13, 1858. 
