76 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. III. 
which ought to be expounded. Our present 
system of opening the book of Nature to the 
masses, as in the galleries of the British Museum, 
without any provision for expounding her lan- 
guage, is akin to that which would keep the 
book of God sealed to the multitude in a dead 
tongue.’ 
In the course of his address he also touched 
upon the progress made in the investigation of 
magnetism and electricity, and the attempts ‘ to 
explain the change in the variation of the mag- 
netic needle.’ This subject was evidently one of 
interest to Prince Albert, for later on in the year 
Owen received a letter from Lord Grey enclosing 
‘ a letter which the Prince has signed himself, 
and which you can quote in your communications 
with the Government expressive of the interest 
which he takes in the success of your endeavours 
to ascertain, as certainly as you can, the causes of 
the deviation of the magnetic needle in different 
parts of the world.’ 
On November 5 Owen was again a guest 
at the Prince of Wales’s table at the White 
Lodge; Lord John Russell also being invited. 
‘ It was a farewell dinner to Richmond Park ,’ as 
the Prince was leaving for Windsor a few days 
later, to go to Potsdam. ‘ We were received,’ says 
Owen in a letter to his sister Catherine, ‘ in the 
great drawing-room, where we used to play the 
“ round game ” with the good old Duchess [of 
