1866.] 



President's Address. 



275 



system of intended observation is modelled on that exemplified at the Kew 

 Observatory. 



The intention, adverted to in my last year's Address, of the Government 

 of Mauritius to establish there a magnetic observatory, working with the 

 instruments and adopting the methods exemplified at Kew, has been since 

 matured. The necessary funds have been remitted, and the instruments 

 are made and are now under process of verification at Kew, where 

 Professor Meldrum, the Director of the Mauritius Observatory, is daily ex- 

 pected to arrive, with the view of making himself thoroughly acquainted 

 with the instruments, and with the processes in which they are to be em- 

 ployed. The geographical position of Mauritius is a very important one, 

 both for magnetical and meteorological observations. Hitherto meteo- 

 rology has been exclusively pursued there, and the researches of Professor 

 Meldrum on the cyclonic storms which prevail in the vicinity of the 

 Island are well known. 



Those of our Fellows who remember the assiduity and devotion to sci- 

 entific pursuits manifested by Mr. Charles Chambers during his employ- 

 ment as one of the assistants of the Kew Observatory, will be glad to Icam 

 that he has received from the Government of Bombay the temporary ap- 

 pointment of Superintendent of the Bombay Magnetical and Meteoro- 

 logical Observatory, and in that capacity has been required to submit a 

 scheme for the reorganization of the observatory, with instruments and 

 methods of research suitable to the advance which has been made in the^e 

 respects in the last twenty-five years. Mr. Chambers's report is understood 

 to be on its way from the Government of Bombay to the India Office, with a 

 view to its being submitted to the consideration of the President and Council 

 of the Royal Society ; and should it be approved, it will probably lead to the 

 permanent employment of Mr. Chambers in his present temporary position, 

 and to the thorough utilization of the observations of past years, in addi- 

 tion to the prospect of most efficient work at this observatory, under the 

 best conditions, both personal and m.aterial, for the future. 



I have to add to the list of magnetic observatories established in the pre- 

 sent year one at the Roman Catholic College at Stonyhurst, supplied with 

 the Kew instruments, and pursuing the same methods of observation and 

 reduction. I refer to this with the greater satisfaction, because in addition 

 to the value to science of the actual work performed at the observatory, it 

 may be expected to be, and is expressly designed by the authorities of the 

 College to be a means, amongst others adopted by them, of fostering among 

 the students a taste for scientific pursuits, which may remain with them in 

 after life. For this latter purpose Stonyhurst has added to the more ordinary 

 modes of instruction in natural knowledge that practical instruction which 

 is only to be gained by working under proper tuition in observatories and 

 laboratories directed to special scientific pursuits, among which magnetism, 

 terrestrial and celestial, may now be considered to have taken its place. 



It was from the twofold motive of aiding the advancement of science by 



