Prof. Key points out that the doctrine is now practically admitted that for all chairs in a college of any pretensions a fixed salary is essential, and that the principle has been recognised in Owens College, Manchester, the Queen's College in Ireland, the Government School of Mines, and the new Indian College for Engineering.

AT an extraordinary General Meeting of the members of University College held on Saturday last, the Right Hon. Lord Belper, LL.D., F.R.S., was unanimously elected President of the College in the place of the late Mr. George Grote. At a session of the council, on the same day, the following appointments were made :-Mr. W. K. Cifford, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, to be Professor of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics; Prof. H. C. Bastian, M.D., F.R.S., to be Physician to University College Hospital; Mr. Berkeley Hill, M. B., Mr. Christopher Heath, and Mr. Marcus Beck, M.S, M. B., to be teachers of Practical Surgery. The Sharpey Scholarship, recently established for the promotion of the study of Biological Science in the college, was conferred upon Mr. E. A. Schäfer. UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, London, has recently been enriched by several valuable donations and legacies. Mr. Grote left 6,000!. for the endowment of a chair of Mental Philosophy, and Mr. James Yates legacies to be similarly applied for the teaching of Geology and Archæology. The treasurer of the College has given an endowment of 200l. for five years for the chair of Applied Mathematics, and the late Prof. Graves left a legacy to the College, without a rival of its kind, in the shape of a Mathematical Library, consisting of more than 10,000 volumes, besides some 500 pamphlets.

THE Senate of University College has appointed as its Professor of Hindustani, Kazi Shahabudeen Ibrahim. This gentleman is an accomplished scholar, and held a high position in our service in India. He was afterwards Dewar of the Rajah

of Kutch, and is now resident for him in London.

He also acts

as hon. secretary of the East India Association. Kazi Shahabudeen being a thorough master of our own language, has a great advantage, and we may indeed observe that the progress of English studies in India ought greatly to promote those of the Indian languages in England. We can now get men having literary proficiency in their own languages, and that acquaintance which few but a native can attain, while they have the full power of communicating their knowledge to students in our colleges.

IN an article which will be found elsewhere, we allude to the approaching Total Eclipse of the Sun. On this subject we may refer to a very interesting letter which Mr. Hind has recently addressed to the Times on the next Total Solar Eclipse which will be visible in England. Our readers will gather that we shall have some time to wait. Mr. Hind tells us that in the year 1954, June 30, the zone of totality just touches the British Isles, and adds "to discover an eclipse that will be total in England, I have found it necessary to continue the calculations to nearly the close of the same century. Such an eclipse (according to my investigation) will not occur until the 11th of August, 1999, when the circumstances will be nearly as follows:-The central and total eclipse will enter upon the earth's surface in the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico; thence traversing the Atlantic, it meets the English coast at Padstow, in Cornwall, and crossing the south of Devon enters the Channel at Torquay (which will be the most favourable place for observation in this country), and passing over the Eddystone, reaches France about fifteen miles east of Dieppe. It will be central and total, with the sun on the meridian some twenty-five miles south-west of Pesth, and traversing Asia Minor, Persia (at Ispahan), &c., will finally leave the earth's surface in the Bay of Bengal. At Torquay the first contact of limbs, or commencement of the eclipse, occurs at

8.23 A. M. local mean time, and the last contact at 11.20 A. M. Totality begins at Ioh. om. 435., with the sun at an altitude of 48°, and continues 2m. 45. At Plymouth the duration of total eclipse is Im. 58s., at Weymouth Im. 55s. The southern part of the Isle of Wight falls within the northern limit of totality according to my calculation." Further, on the subject of the last Total Solar Eclipse visible in London, which occurred on the 3rd of May, 1715, and was successfully observed in the metropolis and at many other English stations, Mr. Hind states, it is "necessary to look further back than the year 1140 for the total solar eclipse in London next preceding that of 1715. I greatly doubt if, excepting the eclipse of August 11, 1999, described above, there can be any total solar eclipse visible in England for two hundred and fifty years from the present time."

THE grounds of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, are now being rapidly occupied with the temporary observatories and instruments which are to be used for the observations of the Transit of Venus in 1874. We could wish that equal energy were shown in arrangements for other observations which are quite as important as those in question.

THE following are the names of the successful candidates in the competition for the Whitworth Scholarships, 1871, in the Science and Art Department :-Edmund F. Mondy, Rotherhithe; Samuel Anglin, Manchester; George Smith, Birmingham; John Yeo, Portsmouth; Henry H. Greenhill, Portsea; John Armitage, Oldham; William Lee, London; Samuel A. Kirkby, Cambridge; Benjamin A. Raworth, Manchester; George C. V. Holmes, Sydenham.

THE French weekly scientific journal, Les Mondes, entered, with its last number, on its 25th volume.

THAT excellent body, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, has recently issued its report for the year 1869, in addition to which we have, under the same cover, Bertrand's paper on the Life and Works of Kepler, Arago's Eulogy on Thomas Young, Memoirs of Auguste Bravais and von Martius, a paper on the Chemistry of the Earth by Sterry Hunt, another on the Electrical Currents of the Earth by Matteucci, another on the Phenomena of Flight by Marey, and so on,—we really have not space to name all the titles,—and we have already said enough to indicate the extreme value of the volume. Among recent memoirs and papers published by the same Institution, we may mention a paper on the magnetic survey of Pennsylvania by Dr. Bache, on the Gleddon mummy case by Dr. Pickering, and on the phenomena and laws of aurora borealis by Loomis.

WE are glad to see that in the list of Civil Service Pensions just issued, the claims of Science have been recognised by the grant of 100l. to Mr. Charles Tilston Beke, in consideration of his geographical researches, and especially of the value of his explorations in Abyssinia; and 150l. to Mrs. Emily Coles, widow of Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, in consideration of her husband's services as inventor of the turret ship system.

THE Revue Scientifique publishes an account of the chemical investigations and works of the late Prof. Payen, the most important of which are as follows:-In 1824 he made his first investigations on the value of manures; in 1830 he presented to the Society of Agriculture a paper on the means of utilising all the parts of dead animals in the country; in 1836 he read a memoir on the elementary composition of starch in different plants; in 1837 he established the composition of dextrine from its definite combinations with oxide of lead and baryta; and in the same year he read a paper on the distribution of nitrogenous matters in the organs of vegetables; in 1838 he presented a very important memoir on the composition of woody tissue, and point. ing out the distinction between cellulose and starch in 1841 he

:

prepared a memoir, in conjunction with M. Boussingault, on the relative value of different manures; in 1847 a paper on sugar in beetroot; in 1852 two very complete memoirs on caoutchouc and guttapercha, their chemical composition and different characters; in 1859 another paper on starch and cellulose; in 1861 one on dextrine and glucose; in 1867 a paper on the constitution and structure of woody tissue; besides a large number of others on economical and vegetable chemistry. As separate works, Prof. Payen published a compendium of theoretical and practical agriculture, a compendium of industrial chemistry, a work on the diseases of the potato, beet, corn, and wine, a treatise on the distillation of beet, a work on alimentary substances, and a report on the vegetable and animal substances made to the French Committee of the Jury of the International Exhibition in London. He was appointed Professor of Industrial Chemistry at the Central School in 1830, and at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in 1839, and was elected member of the Institute in 1842.

WE are informed by Dr. Edward L. Moss, R. N., that within the last few days he has obtained several specimens of Appendicularia furcata and acrocerca in the incoming tide off the east coast of Portland. They have in every instance been captured in their "Haus," or have formed it shortly after capture, and have remained in it as long they were left undisturbed. These rare and interesting visitors to our tidal waters were accompanied by oceanic diatoms which Dr. Moss had never before seen near the English coast.

THE sixth annual meeting of the Quekett Microscopical Club was held on Friday evening last at University College. By the annual report of the committee read, it appeared that the number of the members now amounts to 550. The president, Dr. L. S. Beale, F.R.S., gave the usual presidential address. At the election of officers which followed, Dr. L. S. Beale was elected president for the year 1871-72; for vice-presidents, Dr. Robert Braithwaite, F. L.S., Mr. Arthur E. Durham, F.R.C.S., Mr. Charles J. Leaf, F. R.M.S., Mr. Henry Lee, F.L.S.; for four members of committee, Messrs. W. H. Golding, Thomas Greenish, E. Marks, and F. Oxley; for treasurer, Mr. Robert Hardwicke, F. L. S.; hon. secretary for foreign correspondence, Mr. M. C. Cooke, M.A.; hon. secretary, Mr. T. Charters White.

THE Royal Archæological Institute has just held its annual meeting at Cardiff, under the presidency of the Marquis of Bute, who, in his inaugural address, dwelt on the many objects of archæological interest in which South Wales abounds, especially as the locality of some of the best known incidents of the Arthurian romances. The historical section was presided over by Mr. G. A. Freeman, who delivered a very interesting address on the early ethnology of South Wales. A long excursion was undertaken by the members into Monmouthshire, the principal bjects of interest being Caldicot Castle, Caerwent (the Roman Venta Silurium) and Chepstow.

THE annual meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was held last week at Middlesborough, Mr. John Ramsbottom, of Crewe, being president of the meeting. Papers were read by Mr. William Crossley, of the Askham Ironworks, Lancashire, on the manufacture of hæmatite iron; by Mr. J. Lowthian Bell, upon the preliminary treatment of materials used in the blast furnace; by Mr. Hill, on an improved compound cylinder blowing engines recently erected at the Lackenby Iron Works, Middlesbrough ; a description of the geological features of Cleveland by Mr. John Jones, secretary to the iron trade of the district; by Mr. John A. Haswell, of Gateshead, describing the break drums and the mode of working at the Ingleby incline on the Rosedale branch of the North Eastern Railway; by Mr.

Jeremiah Head, of Middlesborough, on a simple construction of steam-engine governor, having a close approximation to perfect action; and by Mr. Charles Cochrane, of Middlesborough, on steam boilers with small water-space and Roots' tube boiler. The many objects of interest in the neighbourhood were also visited by the members.

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT EDINBURGH

EDINBURGH, Wednesday Morning A VERY important point in the peregrination of the

British Association lies in the fact that the men of science are now assembled in one of the foci of commercial enterprise, now in an old centre of learning, and now in a locality which, although coming under neither of these heads, yet gives large scope for benefiting the surrounding region. That the Association should meet at Edinburgh at this present juncture is extremely fortunate. In the first place Science was largely taught at Edinburgh by the aid of State-endowed professors before either of our old English Universities thought it worth while to investigate wit any earnestness those branches of natural knowledge which are now recognised as not only the necessary accompaniment of a liberal education, but as the foundation of the nation's greatness. In the second place, we learn from the Edinburgh newspapers that the scientific mind of the metropolis of the North has been recently stirred on the subject of the importance of scientific research, and has addressed a memorial to the Royal Commission now sitting, urging that the point shall be strongly taken up.

It may be interesting to mention that this is the third time that the British Association has met at Edinburgh. The first time was in 1834, under the presidency of Sir Thomas Brisbane; the second in 1850, when Sir David Brewster occupied the chair. Already more than 1,300 members have entered their names, a larger number than were present at the last Edinburgh meeting.

The ample accommodation turnished by the Scotch capital is being admirably utilised by the local organisers. The Reception Room is in Parliament House; the sections meet in the University Buildings. In addition to the assemblage of our own savans, the following distinguished scientific foreigners are either in Edinburgh or are expected in the course of the meeting :-The Emperor of Brazil; Dr. Janssen, of Paris; Dr. Buys Ballot, of Utrecht; Prof. v. Baumhauer, of Haarlem ; Prof. Van Beneden, of Louvain; Dr. D. Bierens de Haan, of Leyden; Dr. Boogaard; Dr. Colding, of Copenhagen; Prof. Delffs. of Heidelberg; Baron Desiderius; Baron Roland Eötoös, of Pesth; Don Asturo de Marcoastin, of Madrid; Prof. Margo, of Pesth; l'Abbé Moigno, of Paris; Prof. Morren, of Liége; Prof. Szabó, of Pesth; Prof. Zenger, of Prague; Dr. Youmans, of New York. Of these Dr. Janssen, Prof. Van Beneden, Dr. Buys Ballot, Profs. Szabó and Zenger, and Dr. Colding, have already arrived. The University of Edinburgh has taken the opportunity of conferring the honorary degree of LL.D. on the following distinguished men of science: Dr. Gassiot, Prof. Sylvester, Prof. Stokes, Prof. Challis, Dr. Huggins, Dr. Allen Thomson, Dr. Janssen, Prof. Van Beneden, Dr. Colding, Mr. Spottiswoode, Dr. Carpenter, Prof. Andrews of Belfast, and Dr. Paget of Cambridge.

We are enabled, through the courtesy of the officers of the Association, to give in our present number ful repor s of the president's inaugural address, and of the opening addresses in Sections A, B, and C. In Prof. Geikie's address we have a suitable and altogether to be commended innovation in the shape of an account of the local geology of the neighbourhood, which has been printed separately, and issued with an admirably clear map.

Col. Yule has been appointed president of Section E in the place of the late Dr. Johnston Geological excursions are projected to East Lothian and the coast of Berwickshire, the latter under the guidance of Prof. Geikie; a botanical excursion to the fertile collecting ground of Ben Ledi, in which Prof. Balfour will take part; a dredging expedition in the Frith of Forth; and visits for antiquarians and the lovers of the picturesque to Melrose, Dryburgh, Abbotsford, and Rosslyn. With this tempting bill of fare, if the weather only proves moderately propitious, the meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh must be an occasion to look back upon with pleasure by all who are fortunate enough to be able to take part in its proceedings.

INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF SIR WILLIAM THOMSON, LL.D., F. R.S., PRESIDENT

FOR the third time of its forty years' history the British Association is assembled in the metropolis of Scotland. The origin of the Association is connected with Edinburgh in unding memory through the honoured names of Robison, Brewster, Forbes, and Johnston.

In this place, from this chair, twenty-one vears ago, Sir David Brewster said :-"On the return of the British Association to the metropolis of Scotland, I am naturally reminded of the small band of pilgrims who carried the seeds of this Institution into the more genial soil of our sister land."

"Sir

John Robison, Prof, Johnston, and Prof. J. D. Forbes were the earliest friends and promoters of the British Association. They went to York to assist in its establishment, and they found there the very men who were qualified to foster and organise it. The Rev. Mr. Vernon Harcourt, whose name cannot be mentioned here without gratitude. had provided laws for its govern. ment, and, along with Mr. Phillips, the oldest and most valuable of our office bearers, had made all those arrangements by which its success was ensured. Headed by Sir Roderick Murchison, one of the very earliest and most active advocates of the Asso. ciation, there assembled at York about 200 of the friends of science."

The statement I have read contains no allusion to the real origin of the British Association. This blank in my predecessor's historical sketch I am able to fill in from words written by himself twenty years earlier. Through the kindness of Prof. Phillips I am enabled to read to you part of a letter to him at York, written by David Brewster from Allerly by Melrose, on the 23rd of February, 1831 :

"Dear Sir, I have taken the liberty of writing you on a subject of considerable importance. It is proposed to establish a British Association of men of science similar to that which has existed for eight vears in Germany, and is now patronised by the most powerful Sovereigns of that part of Europe. The arrangements for the first meeting are in progress; and it is contemplated that it shall be held in York, as the most central city for the three kingdoms. My object in writing you at present is to beg that you would ascertain if York will furnish the accom. modation necessary for so large a meeting (which may perhaps consist of above 100 individuals), if the Philosophical Society would enter zealously into the plan, and if the Mayor and influential persons in the town and in the vicinity would be likely to promote its objects. The principal object of the Society would be to make the cultivators of science acquainted with each other, to stimulate one another to new exertions, and to bring the objects of science more before the public eye, and to take measures for advancing its interests and accelerating its progress.

Of the little band of four pilgrims from Scotland to York, not one now survives. Of the seven first associates one more has gone over to the majority since the Association last met. Vernon Harcourt is no longer with us; but his influence remains, a beneficent and surely therefore never dying influence.

He was

our lessons of childhood upwards, learned to see in Herschel, father and son, a præsidium et dulce decus of the precious treasure of British scientific fame. When geography, astronomy, and the use of the globes were still taught, even to poor children, as a pleasant and profitable sequel to "reading, writing, and arithmetic," which of us did not revere the great telescope of Sir William Herschel (one of the hundred wonders of the world), and learn with delight, directly or indirectly from the charming pages of Sir John Herschel's book, about the sun and his spots, and the fiery tornadoes sweeping over his surface, and about the planets, and Jupiter's belts, and Saturn's rings, and the fixed stars with their proper motions, and the double stars, and coloured stars, and the nebulæ discovered by the great telescope? Of Sir John Herschel it may indeed be said, nil tetigit quod non

ornavit.

A monument to Faraday and a monument to Herschel, Britain must have. The nation will not be satisfied with any thing, however splendid, done by private subscription. A national monument, the more humble in point of expense the better, is required to satisfy that honourable pride with which a high-spirited nation cherishes the memory of its great men. But for the glory of Faraday or the glory of Herschel, is a monument wanted? No!

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones
The labour of an age in piled stones?

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid

Under a st r-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,

What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou, in our wonder and astonishment,
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

And, so sepulchred, in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

With regard to Sir John Herschel's scientific work, on the present occasion I can but refer briefly to a few points which seem to me salient in his physical and mathematical writings. First, I remark that he has put forward, most instructively and profitably to his readers, the general theory of periodicity in dynamics, and has urged the practical utilising of it, especially in meteorology, by the harmonic analysis. It is purely by an application of this principle and practical method, that the British Association's Committee on Tides has for the last four years been, and still is, working towards the solution of the grand problem proposed forty-eight years ago by Thomas Young in the following words :

"There is, indeed, little doubt that if we were provided with a sufficiently correct series of minutely accurate observations on the Tides, made not merely with a view to the times of low and high water only, but rather to the heights at the intermediate times, we might form by degrees, with the assistance of the theory contained in this article only, almost as perfect a set of tables for the motions of the ocean as we have already obtained for those of the celestial bodies, which are the more immediate objects of the a tention of the pra tical astronomer.

Sir John Herschel's discovery of a right or left-handed asymmetry in the outward form of crystals, such as quartz, which in their inner molecular structure possess the helicoidal rotational property in reference to the plane of polarisation of light, is one of the notable points of meeting between Natural History and Natural Philosophy. His observations on "epipolic dispersion" gave Stokes the clue by which he was led to his great discovery of the change of periodic time experienced by light in talling on certain substances and being dispersively reflected from them. In respect to pure mathematics Sir John Herschel did more, I believe, than any other man to introduce into Britain the powerful methods and the valuable notation of modern analysis. A remarkable mode of symbolism had freshly appeared, I believe, in the works of Laplace, and possibly of other French mathemati cians; it certainly appeared in Fourier, but whether before or after Herschel's work I cannot say. With the French writers, however, this was rather a short method of writing formulæ than the analytical engine which it became in the hands of Herschel and British followers, especially Sylvester and Gregory (competitors with Green in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos struggle of 1837) and Boole and Cayley. This method was greatly advanced by Gregory, who first gave to its working-power a secure and philosophical foundation, and so prepared the way for the marvellous extension it has received from Buo le, Sylvester, Young's; written in 1823 for the Supplement to the "Encyclopædia Britannica."

and Cayley, according to which symbols of operation become the subjects not merely of algebraic combination, but of differentiations and integrations, as if they were symbols expressing values of varying quantities. An even more marvellous development of this same idea of the separation of symbols (according to which Gregory separated the algebraic signs and from other symbo's or quantities to be characterised by them, and dealt with them according to the laws of algebraic combinations) received from Hamilton a most astonishing generalisation, by the invention actually of new laws of combination, and led him to his famous "Quaternions," of which he gave his earliest exposition to the Mathematical and Physical Section of this Association, at its meeting in Cambridge in the year 1845. Tait has taken up the subject of quaternions ably and zealously, and has carri d it into physical science with a faith, shared by some of the most thoughtful mathematical naturalists of the day, that it is destined to become an engine of perhaps hitherto unimagined power for investigating and expressing results in Natural Philosophy. Of Herschel's gigantic work in astronomical observation I need say nothing. Doubtless a careful account of it will be given in the "Proceedings of the Royal Society of London" for the next anniversary meeting.

In the past year another representative man of British science is gone. Mathematics has had no steadier supporter for half a century than De Morgan. His great book on the differential calculus was, for the mathematical student of thirty years ago, a highly prized repository of all the best things that could be brought together under that title. I do not believe it is less valuable now; and if it is less valued, may this not be because it is too good for examination purposes, and because the modern student, labouring to win marks in the struggle for existence, must not suffer himself to be beguiled from the stern path of duty by any attractive beauties in the subject of his s udy?

One of the most valuable services to science which the British Association has performed has been the establishment, and the twenty-nine years' maintenance, of its Observatory. The Royal Meteorological Observatory of Kew was built originally for a Sovereign of England who was a zealous amateur of astronomy. George the Third used continua ly to repair 10 it when any celestial phenomenon of peculiar interest was to be seen; and a manu-cript book still exists filled with observations written into it by his own hand. After the building had been many years unused, it was granted, in the year 1842, by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Woods and Forests, on application of Sir Edward Sabine, for the purpose of continuing observations (from which he had already deduced important results) regarding the vibration of a pendulum in various gases, and for the purpose of promoting pendulum observations in all parts of the world. The Government granted only the building-no funds for carrying on the work to be done in it. The Royal Society was unable to undertake the maintenance of such an observatory; but, happily for science, the zeal of individual Fellows of the Royal Society and members of the British Association gave the initial impulse, supplied the necessary initial funds, and recommended their new institution successfully to the fostering care of the British Association. The work of the Kew Observatory has, from the commencement, been conducted under the direction of a Committee of the British Association; and annual grants from the funds of the Association have been made towards defraying its expenses up to the present time. To the initial object of pendulum research was added continuous observation of the phenomena of meteorology and terrestrial magnetism, and the construction and verification of thermometers, barometers, and magnetometers designed for accurate measurement. The magnificent services which it has rendered to science are so well known that any statement of them which I could attempt on the present occasion would be superfluous. Their value is due in a great measure to the indefatigable zeal and the great ability of two Scotchmen, both from Edinburgh, who successively held the office of Superintendent of the Observatory of the British Association-Mr. Welsh for nine years, until his death in 1859, and Dr. Balfour Stewart from then until the present time. Fruits of their labours are to be found all through our volumes of Reports for these twenty-one years.

The institution now enters on a new stage of its existence. The noble liberality of a private benefactor, one who has laboured for its welfare with self-sacrificing devotion unintermittingly from within a few years of its creation, has given it a permanent independence, under the general management of a Committee of the Royal Society. Mr. Gassiot's gift of 10,000l. secures the con

tinuance at Kew of the regular operation of the self-recording instruments for observing the phenomena of terrestrial magneti-m and meteorology, without the necessity for further support from the British Association.

The success of the Kew Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory affords an example of the great gain to be earned for science by the foundation of physical observatories and laboratories for experimental research, to be conducted by qualified persons, whose duties should be, not teaching, but experimenting. Whether we look to the honour of England, as a nation which ought always to be the foremost in promoting physical science, or to those vast economical advantages which must accrue from such establishments, we cannot but feel that experimental research ought to be made with us an object of national concern, and not left, as hitherto, exclusively to the private enterprise of self-sacrificing amateurs, and the necessarily inconsecutive action of our present Governmental Departments and of casual Committees. The Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh has moved for this object in a memorial presented by them to the Royal Commission on Scientific Education and the Advancement of Science. The Continent of Europe is referred to for an example to be followed with advantage in this country, in the following words :—

"On the Continent there exist certain institutions, fitted with instruments, apparatus, chemicals, and other appliances, which are meant to be, and which are made, available to men of science, to enable them, at a moderate cost, to pursue original researches."

This statement is fully corroborated by information, on good authority, which I received from Germany, to the effect that in Prus-ia every university, every polytechnical academy, every industrial school (Realschule and Gewerbeschule), most of the grammar-schools, in a word, nearly all the schools superior in rank to the elementary schools of the common people, are supplied with chemical labora ories and a collection of philosophical instruments and apparatus, access to which is most liberally granted by the directors of those schools, or the teachers of the respective disciplines, to any per on qualified, for scientific experiments. In consequence, though there exist no particular institutions like those mentioned in the memorial, there will scarcely be found a town exceeding in number 5,000 inhabitants but offers the possibility of scientific explorations at no other cost than reimbursement of the the expense for the materials wasted in the experiments.'

Further, with reference to a remark in the Memorial to the effect that, in respect to the promotion of science, the British Government confines its action almost exclusively to scientific instruction, and fatally neglects the advancement of science, my informant tells me that, in Germany, "professors, preceptors, and teachers of secondary schools are engaged on account of their skilfulness in teaching; but professors of universities are never engaged unless they have already proved, by their own investigations, that they are to be relied upon for the advancement of science. Therefore every shilling spent for instruction in universi ies is at the same time profitable to the advancement of science."

The physical laboratories which have grown up in the Uni versities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, and in Owens College, Manchester, show the want felt of Colleges of Research; but they go but infinitesimally towards supplying it, being absolutely destitute of means, material or personal, for advancing science except at the expense of volunteers, or securing that volunteers shall be found to continue even such little work as at present is

carried on.

The whole of Andrews's splendid work in Queen's College, Belfast, has been done under great difficulties and disadvantages, and at great personal sacrifices; and up to the present time there is not a student's physical laboratory in any one of the Queen's Colleges in Ireland-a want which surely ought not to remain unsupplied. Each of these institutions (the four Scotch Universities, the three Queen's Colleges, and Owens College, Manches er) requires two professors of Natural philosophy-one who shall be responsible for the teaching, the other for the advancement of science by experiment. The University of Oxford has already es ablished a physical laboratory. The munificence of its Chancellor is about to supply the University of Cambridge with a splendid laboratory, to be constructed under the eye of Prof. Clerk Maxwell. On this subject I shall say no more at present, but simply read a sentence which was spoken by Lord Milton in the first Presidential Address to the British Associa

tion, when it met at York in the year 1831 :-" In addition to other more direct benefits, these meetings [of the British Association]. I hope, will be the means of impressing on the Government the conviction, that the love of scientific pursuits, and the means of pursuing them, are not confined to the metropolis; and I hope that when the Government is fully impressed with the knowledge of the great desire entertained to promote science in every part of the empire, they will see the necessity of affording it due encouragement, and of giving every proper stimulus to its advancement.

It

Besides abstracts of papers read, and discussions held, before the Sections, the annual Reports of the British Association contain a large mass of valuable matter of another class. was an early practice of the Association, a practice that might well be further developed, to call occasionally for a special report on some particular branch of science from a man eminently qualified for the task. The reports received in compliance with these invitations have all done good service in their time, and they remain permanently useful as landmarks in the history of science. Some of thein have led to vast practical results; others of a more abstract character are valuable to this day as powerful and instructive condensations and expositions of th: branches of science to which they relate. I cannot better illustrate the two kinds of efficiency realised in this department of the A-sociation's work than by referring to Cayley's Report on Abstract Dynamics, and Sabine's Report on Terrestrial Magnetism † (1838).

To the great value of the former, personal experience of benefit received enables me, and gratitude impels me, to testify. In a few pages full of precious matter, the generalised dynamical equations of Lagrange, the great principle evolved from Maupertuis' "least action" by Hamilton, and the later developments and applications of the Hamiltonian p.inciple by other authors are descr bed by Cayley so suggestively that the reading of thousands of quarto pages of papers sc ttered through the Transactions of the various learned societies of Europe is rendered superfluous for any one who des res only the essence of these investiga ions, with no more of detail than is necessary for a thorough and practical understanding of the subject.

A

Sabine's Report of 1838 concludes with the following sentence: "Viewed in itself and its various relations, the magnetism of the earth cannot be counted less than one of the most important branches of the physical history of the planet we inhabit; and we may fee quite assured that the completion of our knowledge of its distribution on the surface of the earth would be regarded by our contemporaries and by posterity as a fitting enterprise of a maritime people, and a worthy a hievement of a nation which has ever sought to rank forem st in every arduous and honourable undertaking.” An immediate result of this Report was that the enterprise which it proposed was recommended to the Government by a joint Committee of the British Association and the Royal Society with such succe-s, that Capt. James Ross was sent in command of the Erebus and Terror to make a magne ic survey of the Antarctic regions, and to plant on his way th ee Magnetical and Meteorological Observatories, at St. Helena, the Cape, and Van Diemen's Land. vast mass of precious observations, made chiefly on board ship, were brought home from this expedition. To deduce the desired results from them, it was necessary to eliminate the disturbance produced by the ship's magnetism; and Sbine asked his friend Archibald Smith to work out from Poisson's mathematical theory, then the only available guide, the formulæ required for the purpose This voluntary task Smith executed skilfully and successfully. It was the beginning of a series of labours carried on with most remarkable practical tact, with thorough analytical skill, and with a rare extreme of disinterestedness, in the intervals of an arducu, profession, for the purpose of perfecting and simplifying the correction of the mariner's compass--a proble n which had become one of vital importance for navigation, on account of the introduction of iron ships. Edition after edition of the "Admiral y Compa-s Manual" has been produced by the able superintendent of the Compass Department, Captain Evans, containing chapters of mathematical investigation and formulæ by Smith, on which depend wholly the practical analysis of compass-observations, and rules for the safe use of the compa-s in navigation. I firmly be*Report on the ecent Progress of The ɔre'ical Dynamics, by A. Cayley, (Report of the British Association 1857, p. 1).

Repor on the Variations o the Magnetic Intensity observed at different po nts of the Earth's Surace, by Major Sabine, F.R.S. (to.ming part of the 7th Report of the British Association).

Ieve that it is to the thoroughly scientific method thus adopted by the Admiralty, that no iron ship of Her Majesty's Navy has ever been lost through errors of the compass. The "British Admiralty Compass Manual" is adopted as a guide by all the navies of the world. It has been translated into Russian, German, and Portuguese; and it is at present being translated into French. The British Association may be gratified to know that the possibility of navigating ironclad war-ships with safety de pends on application of scientific principles given to the world by three mathematicians, Poisson, Airy, and Archibald Smith.

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Returning to the science of terrestrial magnetism we find in the Reports of early years of the British Association ample evidence of its diligent cultiva ion. Many of the chief scientific men of the day from England, Scotland, and Ireland, found a strong attraction to the Association in the facilities which it afforded to them for co-operating in their work on this subject. Lloyd, Phillips, Fox, Ross, and Sabine made magnetic observations all over Great Britain; and their results, colected by Sabine, gave for the first time an accura e and complete survey of terrestrial magnetism over the area of this island. I am informed by Prof. Phillips that, in the beginning of the Associa tion, Herschel, though a "sincere well-wisher," felt doubts as to the general utility and probable success of the plan and purpose proposed; but his zeal for terrestrial magnetism brought him from being merely a sincere well-wisher to join actively and cordially in the work of the Association. "In 1838 he begin to give effectual aid in the great question of magnetical observatories, and was indeed foremost among the supporters of that which is really Sabine's great work. At intervals, until about 1858, Herschel continued to give effectual ai ." Sabine has carried on his great work without intermiss on to the present day; thirty years ago he gave to Gauss a large part of the data required for working out the spheri al harmonic analysis for the altered state of terrestrial magnetism over the whole earth. recalculation of the harmonic analys s for the altered state of 'errestrial magnetism of the present time has been undertaken by Adams. He wri es to me that he has already begun some of the introductory work, so as to be ready when Sir Edward Sabine's Tables of the Values of the Magnetic Elements deduced from observation are completed, at once to make use of them," and that he intends to take into account terms of at least one order beyond those included by Gauss. The form in which the requisite data are to be presented to him is a magnetic Chart of the whole surface of the globe. Materials from scientific travellers of all nations, from our home magnetic observatories, from the magnetic observatories of St. Helen, the Cape, Van Demen's Land, and Toronto, and from the scientific observatories of other countries, have been brought together by Sabine. Silently, day a ter day, night after night, for a quarter of a century he has toiled with one constant assistant always by his side to reduce these observations and prepare or the great work. At this moment, while we are here assembled, I believe that, in their quiet summer retirement in Wales, Sir Edwa›d and Lady Sabine are at work on the Magnetic Chart of the world. If two years of life and health are granted to them, science will be provided with a key which must powerfully conduce to the ulti mare opening up of one of the most refractory enigmas of cosmical physics, the cause of terrestrial magnetism.

To give any sketch, however slight, of scientific investigation perfo me during the past year wou d, even if I were competent for the task, far exceed the limi's within which I am confined on the present occa-ion. A detailed account of work done and knowledge gained in science Britain ought to have every year. The Journal of the Chemical Society and the Zoological Record do excellent service by Living abstracts of all papers published in their departments. The admirable example afforded by the German "Fortschritte" and "Jahresbericht" is before us; but hitherto, so far as I know, no attempt has been made to follow it in Britain.

It is true that several of the annual volumes of the Jahresbericht were translated; but a translation, published necessar ly at a considerable interval of time after the original, cannot supply the want. An independent British publication is for many obvious reasons des rable. The two publications, in German and English, would, both by their differences and by their agreements, illustrate the progress of science more correctly and usefully than any single work could do, even if appearing simultaneously in the two languages. It seems to me that to promote the stablishment of a British Year Book of Science is an object to which the power ul action of the British Association would be thoroughly appropriate.