MAGNETIC AND METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORIES. 299 
former stations, and is not a point of sufficient importance, in their opinion, 
to be entitled to any weight in opposition to considerations in favour of 
change,—while in the one important case in which such additional precision 
is especially desirable, that of the solar period, such additional precision 
will be acquired ultimately as a matter of course by continued observation 
at any one of the existing permanent observatories, of whose business mag- 
netie observation forms a part, as weil as by any amount of Colonial esta- 
blishments. 
It is therefore mainly in the elucidation of obscure and difficult physical 
points, and in the probable extension of our knowledge of the geographical 
and other conditions on which the irregular disturbances depend, that our 
hope of advantage from further observation consists,—our conviction being 
that, without special observations at well-selected stations (selected, that 
is, with a view to these objects), there is little or no prospect of further pro- 
gress. The general character of the magnetic phenomena may be con- 
sidered as secured from loss; but the great problem remains unresolved ; 
the local influences are yet to trace ; and the only means of tracing them must 
consist in varying the position of our stations so as to embrace great dif- 
ferences in geographical situation, and in conformity with such indications 
as can be gathered from our present experience. The magnetic establish- 
ments permanently existing in Europe and America are confessedly inade- 
quate to afford the requisite information. The stations which have occurred 
to your Committee as most eligible would be Vancouver Island, New- 
foundland, the Falkland Isles, Bermuda, Ceylon, Shanghai or some locality 
in China, and Mauritius; but they are fully aware that to demand from 
the national purse the institution of observations at all these points, 
would be more than is warranted by any pressing necessity, and ought 
therefore not to be insisted on. Among them, the principal in point of 
interest (for reasons which will be presently mentioned) are Vancouver 
Island, Newfoundland, the Falkland Isles, and Pekin or some near adjacent 
Chinese station, such as Shanghai; and the Committee consider that much 
valuable information would accrue from observations sufficiently prolonged at 
these, to which, therefore, they would be understood to limit their recom- 
mendation. In regard to the length of time over which they would desire to 
see the observations extended, they consider five years (being about half the 
solar period, and being also sufficient to give a fair grasp of the secular 
change of the magnetic elements) as a period both in consonance with that 
* which has been accorded on former occasions, and in some sort designated 
by the nature of the case. 
The reasons which induce them to give a preference to these over the rest 
of the stations enumerated are as follows:—Between Toronto and Point 
Barrow the difference of the epochal hours of the irregular diurnal fluctua- 
tions is such astoamount to a complete opposition of phases,—a circumstance 
which goes far to point out the latter station as being in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the origin of those irregular disturbances. Should observations 
be established at the two stations now proposed, there is every reason to hope, 
as will appear from a document drawn up at the request of the Committee 
by General Sabine, and with his permission appended to this Report, that the 
observations at Toronto, which have been partially re-established since 1855, 
would, with a view to cooperation for this especial purpose, be wholly resumed 
on a fitting application to the Colonial legislature. And in addition to this, 
should an application made to the Norwegian Government for the esta- 
blishment, during the same period, of an observatory at the North Cape prove 
successful (which there is every reason to hope, such an application made on 
x2 
