hi REPORT—1858. 
In reviewing the nature and results of our proceedings during the last 
twenty-seven years, and the aims and objects of our Association, it seems 
as if we are realizing the grand Philosophical Dream or Prefigurative Vision 
of Francis Bacon, which he has recounted in his ‘ New Atlantis.’ 
In this noble Parable the Father of Modern Science imagines an Institu- 
tion which he calls “Solomon's House,” and informs us, by the mouth of 
one of its members, that “the end of its Foundation is the Knowledge of 
Causes and Seerct Motions of Things; and the enlarging of the bounds of 
Human Empire to the effecting of all things possible.” 
Amongst the means and instruments to this great end, Bacon imagines 
laboratories situated at the greatest attainable distances, vertically, in regard 
to the atmosphere ;—some sunk 600 fathoms deeper than the deepest natural 
cave; others placed on towers set upon high mountains, “so that the van- 
tage of the hill with the tower is in the highest of them three miles at least.” 
In the depths he conceives might be carried on the producing of new arti- 
ficial metals* by compositions and materials left at work for many years, in 
imitation of natural mines; also observations on the formation of figured 
fossils ; and he speculates upon the influence of these cold depths in the curing 
of certain diseases and the prolonging of human life, as it seems by a super- 
induced torpidity. In the higher regions of the air are to be carried on 
observations of the heavens, and of divers meteors—wind, rain, hail, and 
falling stars. 
“We have also,” he writes, “spacious houses where we imitate and demon- 
strate meteors, as thunders, lightnings, snow, hail, and rain. We have, also, 
instruments which generate heat only by motion.” 
Next come arrangements for the appliance of water-power and of winds 
to set a-going divers motions :—“ engine-houses, where are prepared engines 
and instruments for all sorts of motions, some swifter than any known to the 
rest of the world, and other various motions for equality, fineness and subtilty : 
—a mathematical house, where are represented all instruments, as well of 
geometry as astromomy, exquisitely made. We have also sound-houses, where 
we practise and demonstrate all sounds and their generation, as by divers in- 
struments of music; and those that imitate all articulate sounds and letters, 
and the voices and notes of beasts and birds. We have also the means to convey 
sounds in trenches and pipes in strange lines and distances.” Then come the 
perspective-houses, “‘ where we make demonstrations of all light and radiations 
and of all colours; and out of things uncoloured and transparent we can 
represent unto you several colours, both as rainbows and as single. We make 
artificial rainbows, halos and circles about light, and represent all manner 
of reflexions, refractions, and multiplication of visual beams of objects. These 
multiplications of light we carry to great distances, and make so sharp as to 
discern small points and lines. We procure means of seeing objects afar off, 
as in the heaven and remote places, representing things afar off as near. We 
* Davy, Herschel, Aluminium, 
