394 British Association for the Advancement of Science. 



any one, who knows the nature of scientific researches, and the differ- 

 ence between the result of money expended in experiments by a good 

 and a bad philosopher, to doubt that this sum has produced effects which 

 many times the sum applied without the same advantages could not 

 have obtained. Without the encouragement of the Association, these 

 researches would never have been undertaken : without the aid of such 

 men as have frequented the meetings of the Association, they would 

 have been attempted to no purpose. It has been said of certain parts 

 of Europe that they afford — 



Iron and men, the soldier and the sword ; 



in like manner we may say of this Association, that it has supplied at 

 the same time the philosophical soldier and the weapons with which he 

 gains his victories over nature. 



" But further, besides the expenditure of its own funds, the Associa- 

 tion has been the means of procuring the appropriation of very large 

 sums to scientific purposes from the national resources. At the sug- 

 gestion or request of their body, the reduction of the observations of the 

 planets made at Greenwich from the time of Bradley has been comple- 

 ted ; and the reduction of the observations of the moon has been begun. 

 Up to the present time, about 2,200Z. has been expended in all. And 

 by a letter from the Astronomer Royal, received since I came here, I 

 am informed, that within a few weeks the Government expressed great 

 willingness to advance more money for this purpose ; and Mr. Aiiy 

 adds, that next Monday he is to have twelve calculators employed upon 

 the work. We have applied to the Government for the extension of the 

 ordnance survey into Scotland, and have received a favorable answer. 

 We have tendered our advice that the ordnance survey of England shall 

 in future be conducted on a scale of six inches to a mile instead of two 

 inches, and this advice is already acted on in the northern counties of 

 England, where the survey is now proceeding. 



" Above all, I must mention an undex'taking, entered upon in pursuance 

 of our repeated recommendations (a service which the philosophers of 

 future ages will duly estimate), — the great Magnetical Survey of the 

 terrestrial globe, by the combined operation of a naval expedition £Uid 

 fixed observatories in every quarter of the world, which is now carrying 

 into effect ; — a scientific work, this — far surpassing in the scale of its 

 means, and in the completeness of its design, any ever yet attempted, 

 and such as Bacon might have assigned to the sages of his New Atlantis, 

 if he had, in imagination, extended their polity from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific, and from pole to pole. 



" We most gladly bear our testimony to the liberality and spirit with 

 which Her Majesty's Government have accepted and acted upon our 



