1872.] President's Address. 27 



proposed undertaking. As I said last year with especial reference to the 

 department of meteorology, it will redound little to the credit of English rule 

 on this side of the world, if with the staff of able scientific men at this time 

 to be found in Calcutta, the immense natural advantages of this region are 

 allowed to be neglected and unused. I hope the Government will not now 

 stand still at its promise, leaving the fulfilment to wait upon accident. The 

 suggested Committee should, at least, be constituted without delay, and im- 

 mediate preparation made of that material and apparatus, which is indispen- 

 sable to the expedition. It would be melancholy indeed if the event of a 

 Queen's ship being reported available for this special service should by reason 

 of absence of supply (that universal difficulty in English organizations) be- 

 come infructuous. 



While speaking of science as lying within the care of this Society, per- 

 haps I may be allowed to express a doubt, whether our body does quite so 

 much, as it well might, towards furthering the application of scientific know- 

 ledge to actual work. We all know that tliere are in progress in this coun- 

 try public undertakings of great magnitude, such, that often in the com^se of 

 them, physical and mathematical problems of a high order, or of considerable 

 complexity, fall to be solved. I desire not to do an injustice to the many 

 able and skilled officers engaged in these undertakings ; but I believe I do 

 not err in thinking that comparatively speaking few among them are familiar 

 with the higher principles of physical mathematics, or have any considerable 

 command over the mathematical analysis, necessary for working out the 

 results which would follow from the application of those principles in a given 

 case. It will not now-a-days be said that the labours of the mathematician 

 and physicist in the cabinet are valueless to the man, who has to observe the 

 phenomena, and to deal with the forces, of nature in the field. In England 

 the engineer constantly seeks the aid of the mathematician. And in France 

 the prevailing belief is, that the recent successes of Germany are attributable 

 solely to the persistency with which the Germans have of late years been 

 availing themselves in all directions of the resources of science. It has occur- 

 red to me that our Society would do good service, if it afforded the means 

 from time to time, of scientifically criticising the various works to which I 

 have alluded, and of bringing to the test of mathematical analysis and phy- 

 sical reasoning the many important questions which arise in the course of 

 carrying out those works, and which are suggested in, or form the subject 

 of, professional reports. At present I may say that as a body we are 

 altogether inactive in this direction. Our late member, the venerable 

 Archdeacon Pratt, was ever ready to give the benefit of his mathematical 

 powers and scientific knowledge, to those who sought it. But as a Society 

 I believe we have done little or nothing of this kind. It seems to me that 

 we should not leave such work solely to the accidental efforts of individual 



