evlil REPORT—1858. 
the diminution of the sum of human agony are indescribable. But that 
divine-like application was not present to the mind of the scientific chemist 
who discovered the anesthetic product, any more than was the gas-lit town 
to the mind of PriestLey or the condensing-engine to that of BLAck. 
These unexpected applications of pure Science, fraught with such incal- 
culable influences on the well-being of peoples, ought to weigh with the 
Minister to whom may be submitted an enterprise in Science which only a 
nation can undertake, or the considerations of a scientific establishment 
which none but a nation can support, Much of the improvement in refined 
machinery, and the tools for making it, grew out of the requirements and 
teaching of Bansace during the construction of his Calculating Machines. 
Such collateral result, alone, has made a manifold return for the sum granted 
in aid of the realization of that philosopher’s great idea. So rare a combi- 
nation of analytic, inventive, and constructive faculties is seldom given to 
man ; and the generation witnessing such a mind in operation would be wise 
to secure the full result of its peculiarly directed energy. 
In proportion to the facilities and rapidity of exchange and transit of 
goods, of men, and of thought, trade and commerce expand; and with their 
expansion grow the receipts under the heads of Customs and Excise. Every 
application of pure mathematics and astronomy to the making voyages safer 
and speedier,—every observation by such instruments as the Establishment 
of the British Association at Kew perfects for their purpose, giving to the 
mariner fore-knowledge of storms, and teaching him their course and lines 
of greatest intensity,—becomes an important condition in enabling a country 
to bear the burthen of taxation. 
The steps in the series of this relation have been so plain that national 
encouragement has long been given to Astronomy. As clear a perception 
of the same relation and tendency of discoveries in Chemistry, Electricity, 
Electro-magnetism, and other sciences, led Herschel, long ago, to ask “ Why 
the direct assistance afforded by Governments to the execution of continued 
series of observations should be confined to Astronomy?” 
Faithfully is the State served by that Science. Most exemplary are 
those observations made, and every astronomical duty bearing on the 
interests of society, discharged, in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, the 
good repute of which grows and spreads year by year under its present 
indefatigable Chief. Year by year, almost, arises the necessity for some addi- 
tional instrument to meet the ever-expanding relations and requirements of 
Astronomy and Meteorology. 
But to make use of fitting instruments is one thing, to make them fit for 
use another. To perfect that fitness and extend it to the instruments of all 
observatories, to maintain a standard of excellence whereby comparison of 
results shall be most productive of truth, are the special functions of our 
kindred establishment at Kew. There, as in the mathematical and engine 
houses of the ‘ New Atlantis,’ we seek to render our instruments unrivalled 
