84 Meetings of the Scientific Association of Great Britain. 
Thanks were returned to the general Secretary, Rev. Vernon 
Harcourt* for his great and successful exertions. ‘The President 
Sir Thomas M. Brisbane, declaring that it was the only painful du- 
ty imposed upon him during the week, then adjourned the socie- 
ty, to meet at Dublin, August 10, 1835, when the meeting sep- 
arated. 
Among the subjects already promoted, or to be encouraged by the 
British Association, Prof. Forbes mentioned— 
The investigation by Mr. Taylor, of the formation of mineral 
veins, im which it can scarcely be doubted that electric agency is 
concermed. 
The subject of terrestrial magnetism, especially as regards the di- 
rection and intensity of its energy, which is subject to abrupt and ca- 
pricious changes, which Baron Humboldt, calls magnetic storms. 
Hourly observations on the thermometer, have been commenced 
in the south of England, and the same train of observations is to be 
taken up in India. 
A regular system to ascertain the rate at which rain falls, at dif- 
ferent heights, has been undertaken by Messrs. Phillips and Gray, 
at York. 
A regular system of Auroral Observations, extending from the 
Shetland Islands to the Lands End has been established ; the influ- 
ence on the magnetic needle is included. 7 
Prof. Phillips is preparing an elaborate synopsis of Fossil Organ- 
ic Remains. 
Observations on the tides have been undertaken by the Lords of 
the Admiralty at above five hundred stations, along the coast of 
Britain. 
America has taken the lead in several departments of experiment 
recommended by the association, and the instructions for conducting 
uniform systems of observation, have been reprinted and circulated 
in the new world. 
* Prof. Forbes in his address before the association states, that to the exertion of 
this gentleman, almost single handed and alone, is due the signal merit of estab- 
lishing a permanent society, of which these annual reunions, should simply be the 
meetings, but which, by methods and by influence peculiarly its own, should, du- 
ring the intervals of these public assemblies (whilst to the eye of the world appar- 
ently torpid and inactive) be giving an impulse to every part of the scientific sys- 
tem, maturing scientific enterprize, and directing the labors requisite for discov- 
ery. Not only for the first conception of the idea, but for the construction of the 
machinery in all its details, the association is indebted to the Rev. Vernon Har- 
court. 
