OCTOBEE 4, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



427 



for the purpose of assisting in carrying on 

 magnetical, meteorological and other phj's- 

 ical observations. The British Association 

 thereupon, after having maintained this 

 Observatory for nearly thirty years, at a 

 total expenditure of about £12,000, handed 

 the Observatory over to the Royal Societj^ 



The Transactions of the British Associa- 

 tion are a catalogue of its efforts in every 

 branch of science, both to promote experi- 

 mental research and to facilitate the appli- 

 cation of the results to the practical uses of 

 life. But probably the marvellous develop- 

 ment in science which has accompanied the 

 life-history of the Association will be best 

 appreciated by a brief allusion to the con- 

 dition of some of the branches of science in 

 1831 as compared with their present state. 



At the foundation of the Association 

 geology was assuming a prominent position 

 in science. The main features of English 

 geology had been illustrated as far back as 

 1821, and among the founders of the Brit- 

 ish Association, Murchison and Phillips, 

 Buckland, Sedgwick and Conybeare, Lyell 

 and De la Beche were occupied in investi- 

 gating the data necessary for perfecting a 

 geological chronology by the detailed obser- 

 vations of the various British deposits, and 

 by their correlation with the continental 

 strata. They are thus preparing the way 

 for those large generalizations which have 

 raised geology to the rank of an inductive 

 science. 



In 1831 the ordnance maps published 

 for the southern counties had enabled the 

 Government to recognize the importance of 

 a geological survey by the appointment of 

 Mr. De la Beche to aihx geological colors 

 to the maps of Devonshire and portions of 

 Somerset, Dorset and Cornwall ; and in 

 1835 Lyell, Buckland and Sedgwick in- 

 duced the Government to establish the 

 Geological Survey Department, not only 

 for promoting geological science, but on ac- 

 count of its practical bearing on agriculture, 



mining, the making of roads, railways 

 and canals, and on other branches of na- 

 tional industry. 



The ordnance survey appears to have 

 had its origin in a proposal of the French 

 Government to make a joint measurement 

 of an arc of the meridian. This proposal 

 fell through at the outbreak of the Eevolu- 

 tion, but the measurement of the base for 

 that object was taken as a foundation for a 

 national survey. In 1831, however, the 

 ordnance survey had only published the 

 1-inch map for the southern portion of 

 England, and the great triangulation of 

 the kingdom was still incomplete. 



In 1834 the British Association urged 

 upon the Government that the advance- 

 ment of various branches of science was 

 greatly retarded by the want of an accurate 

 map of the whole of the British Isles ; and 

 that, consequently, the engineer and 

 meteorologist, the agriculturist and geolo- 

 gist, were each fettered in their scientific 

 investigations by the absence of those accu- 

 rate data which now lie ready to his hand 

 for the measurement of length, of surface 

 and of altitude. 



Yet the first decade of the British Asso- 

 ciation was coincident with a considerable 

 development of geographical research. 

 The Association was persistent in pressing 

 on the Government the specific importance 

 of sending the expedition of Eoss to the 

 Antarctic and of Franklin to the Arctic re- 

 gions. We may trust we are approaching 

 ing a solution of the geography of the North 

 Pole ; but the Antarctic regions still pre- 

 sent a field for the researches of the meteor- 

 ologist, the geologist, the biologist and the 

 magnetic observer, which the recent voy- 

 age of M. Borchgrevink leads us to hope 

 may not long remain unexplored. 



In the same decade the question of an al- 

 ternative route to India by means of a com- 

 munication between the Mediterranean and 

 the Persian Gulf was also receiving atten;- 



