and gained additional experience in observing, during their co-operative 

 labours in its service. When Captain James Ross and Major Sabine, 

 and Profs. Lloyd and Phillips, and Mr. Fox, were engaged in ascer- 

 taining the curves of the magnetic elements across the British islands, 

 vv^ith unexampled completeness, they performed a national vi^ork import- 

 ant in itself, but still more important as leading on to greater under 

 takings. But lastly, Gentlemen, whence proceeded that theory which 

 it is the highest object of all this philosophical energy, and all this na- 

 tional liberality to put to the test — the first profound attempt to bring 

 the magnetism of the earth under the dominion of Calculation ? Let 

 the illustrious author of it speak for himself: " Several years ago," 

 says Gauss, " I repeatedly began attempts of this kind, from all of 

 which the great inadequacy of the data at my command forced me to 

 desist." " The appearance of Sabine's map of the total intensity, in the 

 7th Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 has stimulated me to undertake and complete a new attempt," — an at- 

 tempt, Gentlemen, which, whether we consider the importance of its 

 results, or the labour and the strength expended upon it by this great 

 mathematician, reflects high credit on the author of the map, which 

 provided for such a theory numerical expressions, and does honour to 

 the Institution which was in any the least degree instrumental to its 

 production. 



In what I have been saying. Gentlemen, I have been desirous of 

 pointing to that spirit of co-operation which our meetings have called 

 forth in this country. We see among us at length the novelty of many 

 fraternities of fellow-labourers working for a common cause, on a com- 

 mon plan, with a perfect mutual understanding. This is the only means 

 of advancing the great branches of knowledge in which space is a 

 necessary element, and it is the best security for a constant progress in 

 all. Science, in a country where every man labours alone, has periods 

 of darkness as well as light, and resembles those stars which are seen 

 from time to time to " pale their ineffectual fires "; but there need be 

 no fear of its decline, there can be no check in its advance, when it de- 

 pends not on the prowess of any single arm, but on the force of its 

 numbers and the order of its array. 



The system of your meetings. Gentlemen, has brought together 

 things which ought never to be disjoined — the principles of science, 

 with their application to human use. After gathering your first mem- 

 bers from our ancient schools of learning, you passed to the marts of 

 commerce, and are now come to the heart of the manufactures of Eng- 

 land, and look round on all the resources and creations of mechanical 



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