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unanimously agreed to recommend them also to Sir Robert Peel, 

 I therefore signified our wishes to the Prime Minister and to the Di- 

 rectors of the East India Company; I rejoice to say that they have 

 both given their consent to the adoption of the united recommen- 

 dation of the Royal Society and the British Association, and it only 

 remains for me to express to them the gratitude of the world of 

 science. I have strong reasons to believe that the other govern- 

 ments who have carried on joint observations with us, will also con- 

 tinue them with some modification, and thus that we shall continue 

 to see the world united by important scientific inquiries carried on 

 in common, — a pledge of peace and friendship, and a proof of the 

 growing conviction that it is the real interest of every civilized go- 

 vernment to promote physical science. 



I am happy to be able to announce the safe return to the Cape of 

 Good Hope of the vessel which, at the request of the Royal Society, 

 was sent by Her Majesty's Government under the direction of Lieut. 

 T. E. L. Moore of the Royal Navy, and Lieut. Henry Clerk of the 

 Royal Artillery, to complete the magnetic survey of the high lati- 

 tudes of the southern hemisphere, of which three-fourths had pre- 

 viously been accomplished by the expedition under Sir James Clark 

 Ross. The Pagoda left the Cape of Good Hope in January last, 

 making a course to the southward in the meridian of Greenwich, 

 until her further progress in that direction was stopped by the ice 

 in the vicinity of the Antarctic Circle. Thence she proceeded to the 

 eastward, keeping as near the edge of the ice as circumstances would 

 permit, until the close of the season of navigation in those latitudes, 

 when she had passed the meridian of 120° E. and had connected 

 her survey with that of Sir James Ross's expedition. Lieutenants 

 Moore and Clerk are on their way to England with their magnetic 

 observations, of which the results will eventually be presented to 

 the Royal Society. I am happy to add, that this service has been 

 performed without accident or loss of life. 



Since our last Anniversary, Sir John Franklin and Captain Crozier 

 have left the shores of England for the purposes of discovery in the 

 other cold regions of the globe. As the Government previously 

 consulted the Council of the Royal Society on the importance of 

 such an expedition to the cause of geographical science, we must 

 naturally feel a deep interest in its success. It would be pre- 

 sumptuous to speculate on the solution of the problem of a North- 

 west Passage. Barriers of ice may prove insurmountable, but we 

 may confidently trust that every thing will be done that energy and 

 experienced skill can effect, by an expedition which goes out with 

 mechanical advantages that attended none of the former attempts of 

 a Parry and a Ross. 



The year that has now elapsed has had thrown over it a dark 

 gloom by a most melancholy and awful event. I need not say that I 

 allude to the deeply lamented death of our late Foreign Secretary, 

 Mr. Daniell. That a soldier should fall in the battle-field, or that a 

 sailor should meet with a glorious death on the deck of a man-of- 

 war, or lose his life in the storms that have wrecked so many gallant 



