RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE. xli 
C.E.; W. Smith, C.E.; J. E. M‘Connell, C.E.; C. Atherton, C.E.; Professor 
Rankine, LL.D.; J. R. Napier, C.E.; Henry Wright (Secretary). 
Involving Applications to Government or Public Institutions. 
Resolved,—That application be made to the Sardinian Authorities for 
obtaining additional facilities to scientific men for pursuing their researches 
on the summits of the Alps. 
That the Right Hon. M. T. Baines, M.P., Viscount Goderich, M.P., 
Mr. Wm. Fairbairn, Mr. James Heywood, General Sabine, and Mr. T. Web- 
ster, be appointed a Committee for the purpose of taking such steps as may 
be necessary to render the Patent System of this country, and the funds 
derived from inventors, more efficient and available for the reward of meri- 
torious inventors and the advancement of Science. 
That a Committee, consisting of Mr. W. Hopkins, Mr. R. Mallet, and 
General Portlock, be requested to represent to the Meteorological Depart- 
ment of the Board of Trade the desirableness of connecting with its arrange- 
ments a system for the observation and record of Oceanic and Littoral 
Earthquakes and of the occasional occurrence upon the coasts of Great Sea 
Waves, and, if practicable, of bringing such into immediate operation. 
That it is highly desirable that a series of Magnetical and Meteoro- 
logical Observations on the same plan as those which have been already 
carried on in the Colonial Observatories for that purpose under the direction 
of Her Majesty’s Board of Ordnance, be obtained, to extend over a period of 
not more than five years, at the following stations :— 
1. Vancouver Island. 
2. Newfoundland. 
3. The Falkland Isles. 
4. Pekin, or some near adjacent station. 
That an application be made to Her Majesty’s Government to obtain 
the establishment of Observatories at these stations for the above-mentioned 
term, on a personal and material footing, and under the same superin- 
tendence as in the Observatories (now discontinued) at Toronto, St. Helena, 
and Van Diemen’s Land. 
That the observations at the Observatories now recommended, should be 
comparable with, and in continuation of, those made at the last-named Ob- 
servatories, including four days of term observations annually. 
That provision be also requested at the hands of Her Majesty’s Govern- 
ment for the execution within the period embraced by the observations of 
magnetic surveys in the districts immediately adjacent to those stations, 
viz. of the whole of Vancouver Island and the shores of the Strait sepa- 
rating it from the main land,—of the Falkland Isles,—and of the immediate 
neighbourhood of the Chinese Observatory (if practicable), wherever 
situated,—on the plan of the surveys already executed in the British posses- 
sions in North America and in the Indian Archipelago. 
That a sum of £350 per annum, during the continuance of the ob- 
servations, be recommended to be placed by Government at the disposal of 
the General Superintendent, for the purpose of procuring a special and 
scientific verification and exact correspondence of the magnetical and me- 
teorological instruments, both of those which shall be furnished to the 
several Observatories, and of those which, during the continuance of the 
observations for the period in question, shall be brought into comparison 
with them, either at Foreign or Colonial Stations. 
