108 Proceedings of the British Association, 



Sir Thomas Deane mentioned that since the meeting at Cork, the 

 rooms in the Court House, which had been found most incon- 

 venient for hearing and seeing, had been altered according to the plan 

 proposed by Mr. Russell, which had been found to answer perfectly. 

 Mr. Hodgkinson was called on to report on the grant made last 

 year for examining * the Law of Defective Electricity of iron and 

 stone/ but as this report was also made to the Mathematical 

 Section, we need not here further allude to it. 



Mr. Scott Russel then reported that the Committee on the Forms 

 of Ships had now completed their labours ; that the whole of the 

 tables of the experiments, and all the drawings of the forms of 

 the ships were now ready for publication. These tables were so 

 voluminous, and the plates required for illustration were so numerous 

 and expensive, that the question of publication was likely to be at- 

 tended with some difficulty ; but a Committee consisting of the Pre- 

 sident of the Royal Society, the Dean of Ely, Col. Sabine, and Mr. 

 Taylor, had been appointed for the purpose of making the necessary 

 arrangements. He had now to communicate to the meeting an im- 

 portant addition, which had been made to these experiments during 

 the past year. The members of this Section were aware that the 

 former experiments made by the Committee comprehended vessels of 

 many forms, and various sizes, from the length of a few inches, to 

 ships of 2,000 tons displacement, but in all these experiments direct 

 mechanical means of propulsion had been employed, and not the 

 force of the wind, and they were therefore regarded as applicable to 

 steam vessels, rather than to sailing ships. During last year, how- 

 ever, most satisfactory experiments had been made, in which the 

 propelling force was the wind acting on the sails of the vessel on the 

 open sea. The circumstances in which this experiment originated, 

 displayed in a striking manner the advantages conferred by an Asso- 

 ciation like this on the districts which it visited. The two gentlemen 

 who had conducted this experiment were both Irishmen : one, Dr. 

 Corrigan, of Dublin, having become acquainted, through the last 

 meeting in Cork, with the experiments of this Association, deter- 

 mined on building a pleasure boat to carry out the principles which 

 had been established by those experiments, and to have his vessel 

 built on that form which was pointed out by these experiments as 



