HEETEOEDSHIIIE XATUEAL HISTOEY SOCIETY. 
Xlll 
public would have little or no difficulty in setting their clocks at 
Greenwich time every day. The value of correct time to all 
scientific men could not be over-estimated. It was especially useful 
in telling almost the exact second a star was observed to shoot, and 
thereby improving the determinations of their paths; it was indis¬ 
pensable if we were to learn anything as to the foci and rates of 
transmission of earthquake shocks, and in many other matters. As 
to earthquakes, he remembered one in 1852, and he thought that 
more than half a dozen slight shocks had been felt in England 
since that date; therefore this suggestion as to their careful observa¬ 
tion was not so superfluous as some might imagine.* Accurate 
time was also indispensable for comparable observations of the 
aurora borealis, and in mentioning it he ought not to pass in 
silence the splendid work which Prof. Lemstrom had been doing 
in the Arctic circle. He was now again in Northern Einland, and 
Mr. Symons hoped to see similar endeavours made in England, 
so that they could have simultaneous observations of the aurora 
borealis. 
Research should receive every encouragement. The making of 
more observations was not so much wanted as the working up of 
those already made. It was hardly any use for a person to erect 
a small observatory and collect a number of instruments, unless 
the observations made were thoroughly threshed out. The great 
difficulty to be experienced in the present day was to get people to 
think, and he strongly urged upon all those who took an interest 
in meteorology to think more than they did. A serious matter in 
connection with scientific researches in England was the absence 
of encouragement and prospects to those who devoted themselves 
to scientific work. What would be thought of a young man who 
went to college and spent the best part of his time in recording 
meteorological observations? A man who gave his attention to 
science, and who required to earn his living at it, would find that 
he could only just keep himself respectably. That was not the 
way to induce people to go in for science. At present they de¬ 
pended upon the amateur, and there was no other country on the 
face of the globe where amateurs did so much for science as in 
England. Most of them, however, had other occupations to follow, 
and therefore could not give that amount of thinking which was 
required. In conclusion, Mr. Symons expressed a hope that his 
hearers would do their best to carry out some of the suggestions he 
had ventured to offer. 
* The Essex earthquake shock of April 22nd (1884) is an apt illustration of this 
difficulty, for the transit of the wave seems to have been so rapid that the time 
occupied in travelling about 250 miles is scarcely greater than the evident errors 
of the clocks. There are perhaps thirty records of the time of the shock, hut 
they are so vitiated by palpable clock-errors as to render it almost hopeless to 
extract the truth from them. 
