of life, such a conversation, at such a moment, with a man, of whom, 

 as he is no longer with us, I may venture to say, that he is worthy of 

 being employed on so glorious a service. 



When I had bidden him adieu, I had leisure to reflect on the possible 

 consequences of his expedition, and the plan of which it forms a part, — 

 The problem of terrestrial magnetism solved — first, the laws of the 

 changes of its elements detected, their constant parts determined, and 

 the whole proved to coincide with a theory based on a legitimate re- 

 presentation of known facts — then, the lines of its force and direction 

 truly drawn, the deviations predicted, and the corrections supplied — 

 in the immediate view of practical consequences, our ships finding in 

 their compass-needles a more unfailing guide than in the fragile time- 

 piece or the cloudy sky — in the distant horizon of higher and yet more 

 fruitful speculation, the true cause of the phsenomena — and therein per- 

 haps a completion of what Newton began — a revelation of new cosmical 

 laws — a discovery of the nature and connexion of imponderable forces 

 ■ — all these the possible results of approaching the heights of theory on 

 what may prove to be their most accessible and measurable side. 



Afterwards I thovight of the causes which had conduced to this 

 grand undertaking, which had prompted the British Government to 

 seek these laurels, and cull these fruits of jjeace, by the outfit of the most 

 important and the best-appointed scientific expedition which ever 

 sailed from the ports of England. Well were the government both 

 prompted and seconded by the science of the country. I saw the 

 apartments of the Royal Society moved by a fresh spirit of energy and 

 zeal ; its most distinguished members sacrificing personal considera- 

 tions, and postponing individual to public objects — Committees meet- 

 ing and corresponding, to perfect the instruments of observation, and 

 prepare the plans for observing — distant members, at Dublin and 

 Woolwich, deputed to instruct the observers. It seemed as if the days 

 of Wallis, and Wilkins, and Wren, and Boyle, and Evelyn were revived ; 

 and whom did I recognise, Gentlemen, among those who were thus 

 zealously and effectively employed ? Their faces were familiar to me ; 

 they were the same men who first proposed the subject, and discussed it 

 together at the meetings of this Association, the same who went from 

 you to call the national attention to it, and had since added to that call 

 all the influence and all the efficacy of the Royal Society. The indi- 

 vidual, again, appointed to command the expedition, and conduct the 

 observations, and those also who were selected to instruct the other 

 observers, who were they ? They were not only taken from the ranks of 

 the Association, but they had perfected the instruments of observation, 



