Iv 



sudden subsidence of a mass of rock " many times as large as "Westmin- 

 ster Abbey." These failures, however, are the less to be regretted, as, 

 had they not occurred, the third and successful attempt made by the 

 Astronomer Eoyal in 1854, in the Harton Coal-pit, near South Shields, 

 at a greater depth, and with the immense advantage of electric commu- 

 nication between the clock above and the pendulum below, might never 

 have been undertaken. 



In 1828 Dr. Whewell was chosen Professor of Mineralogy, as the 

 successor of Professor Clarke, a position for which he had prepared 

 himself by a residence in Grermany, under the instructions of Pro- 

 fessor Mohs. The subject, especially its crystallographical depart- 

 ment, had previously, however, attracted much of his attention, as is 

 evinced by his elaborate memoir " On a general method of calculating 

 the Angles made by any planes of Crystals," communicated in 1824 

 to the Eoyal Society (of which so early as 1821 he had become a 

 Pellow). Several papers on the same department of Mineralogical 

 Science were also communicated by him to the Cambridge Society in 

 1822, 1827, and 1828. This appointment, however, he held only for 

 four years, and resigned it in 1832, when he was succeeded by Professor 

 "William Hallows Miller. 



In 1827 he became a Pellow of the Greological Society, of which, such 

 was the general sense of his proficiency in that science, in 1838, he 

 was elected to the office of President. To this Society he communi- 

 cated (in 1847) a paper on the distribution of the Scandinavian boulders. 

 In the Meetings of the British Association, too, he took a lively interest, 

 and was President of that body in 1841. He was the originator, or 

 one of the originators of that system of Beports on the present state 

 and progress of the several branches of science, which have from time 

 to time been so usefully and instructively published in their annual 

 Proceedings. In 1831 we find him writing to a friend on this subject. 

 " The advice I gave them (the managers of the York Meeting) was to 

 this effect : that the meeting should select eminent persons in each 

 department of science, and beg them to make, by the next annual 

 meeting, reports as to the present condition of their respective pro- 

 vinces, and the points where research will apparently be most useful ; 

 that the purport of these reports and the degree of interest which they 

 may excite should be the guide and basis of future operations of the Asso- 

 ciation, if it continue ; and that, at any rate, such collection of reports, 

 if it can be procured, be printed — by which means their Wittenagemote 

 will not have met in vain." This idea being acted on, he himself con- 

 tributed from time to time, Eeports on the Tides and on the Mathema- 

 tical theories of Heat, Magnetism, and Electricity. 



The subject of the Tides engaged a large portion of his attention, 

 and gave occasion for a series of researches on the progress of the 

 Tide-wave in difierent regions of the ocean, communicated to the 



