British Assodaiion for the Advancement of Science. 391 



Military Posts of the United States. Prepared under the direction of 

 Thovias Lawson, M. D., Surg. Gen. U. S. Army. To which is appen- 

 ded, the Meteorological Register for the years 1822, 1823, 1824, and 

 1825: compiled under the direction: of Joseph Lovell, M. D., late Sur- 

 geon General of the U. S. Army. Published for the use of the Medical 

 Officers of the Army. Philad. 1840. 8vo. pp. 161. 



This valuable work contains observations on the thermometer, face 

 of the sky, direction of the wind and the rain, at places ranging from N. 

 lat. 27° 57' to 46° 39', and from W. long. 67° to 96°. It is introduced 

 by judicious observations concerning the comparative temperature and 

 climate of the different sections of the country, and is accompanied by 

 a map of the U. S. indicating the positions of the various posts of obser- 

 vation. The collection will be of much interest to meteorologists, but 

 its value would have been much greater had it comprised observations 

 of the barometer. 



Art. XIV. — Proceedings of Learned Societies. 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science. 



The eleventh annual meeting of this body, was convened at Plymouth, 

 on Thursday, the 27th of July. The meeting seems to have been one 

 of great value to science. The proceedings of the various sections, £is 

 reported in the London Athenaeum, are very full and interesting, and as 

 far as published on the 28th of August, had occupied over one hundred 

 and forty columns of that closely printed journal. We shall in our next 

 number endeavor to give our usual condensed abstract, which has been, 

 as far as we are informed, the only American channel by which a knowl- 

 edge of the doings of this important body has come to men of science 

 in this country. 



We cannot resist the temptation to exceed the limits of our number, 

 for the purpose of laying before our readers the following extract from 

 the address delivered by the President, Prof. Whewell, at the opening 

 of the meeting. 



This address begins by an allusion to an imaginary Philosophical Col- 

 lege, and that classic fable of which the great Bacon gives so remarkable a 

 picture — the New Atlantis. The imaginary teacher whom he intrpduces 

 as one of the sages of this Utopian region, describes to the inquiring trav- 

 eller an institution which he calls Solomon's House. Of this institution he 

 says, " The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes and secret 

 motions of things, and the enlarging the bounds of the human empire 

 to effecting of things possible." A strikingly beautiful parallel is then 



