THE VICTORIAN ERA 185 
letter and to draw up plans for the proposed establish- 
ments; but difficulties and delays of many kinds arose 
and for a couple of years things made but little progress. 
The Royal Society applied to the Government for funds to 
purchase magnetic instruments early in 1837, and money 
was at once granted. Then some trouble arose as to 
what instruments were to be bought. Many of the 
British authorities looked with distrust on the new forms 
of apparatus introduced by Gauss and used at continental 
observatories, and while these were being tested at Green- 
wich Observatory the months and years were slipping 
past. A contemporary, evidently a man of high author- 
ity, writing in the Quarterly Review a few years later 
states that : 
“ While thus in abeyance a movement from another 
quarter gave a decisive turn to the whole project, by 
striking at once an outline so full and sweeping as to meet 
all the exigencies of the case.” This movement was the 
long delayed action of the British Association. 
During the period when both the bodies representing 
natural science as a whole were deliberating and delay- 
ing, events were moving forward. The American Ex- 
ploring Expedition was decided upon, with Antarctic re- 
search as a large part of its programme. Lieutenant 
Wilkes of the United States Navy came to London to 
buy magnetic and nautical instruments, and a notice prob- 
ably derived directly from him and written by Captain 
Washington, R. N., then secretary of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society, appeared in the Journal of that society 
for 1836. It gave a brief outline of the American plans, 
stated that the expedition would probably start in the 
Spring of 1837, and welcomed in the warmest possible 
way the accession of the United States to the number of 
