Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science / delivered by the President, John Phillips ... in the Town Hall, at Birmingham, September 6, 1865.

  • Phillips, John, 1800-1874.
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science / delivered by the President, John Phillips ... in the Town Hall, at Birmingham, September 6, 1865. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/44 (page 38)
    that great system of magnetic observations, on which for more than a quarter of a century the British Association and the Boyal Society, acting in concert, have been intent. First, we had Reports on the mathematical theory and experimental researches of magnetism by Christie, 1833, Whewell, 1835, and Sabine, 1835 afterwards, a magnetic survey of the British Islands^' ; then, the establishment of a com¬ plete observatory at Dublin, with newly arranged instruments, by Dr. Lloyd, in 1838. On all this gathered experience we founded a memorial to Her Majesty’s government, made a grant of £400 from our funds for preliminary expenses, and presented to the meeting of this Association in Birmingham, in 1839, a Report of progress, signed by Herschel and Lloyd. From that time how great the labour, how inestimable the fruits! Ross sails to the mag¬ netic pole of the south; America and Russia co¬ operate with our observers at Kew, Toronto, and St. Helena ; and General Sabine, by combining all this united labour, has the happiness of seeing results established of which no man dreamed—laws of har¬ monious variation affecting the magnetic elements of the globe, in definite relation to the earth’s move¬ ment, the position of the sun and moon, the distribu- z The survey was begun in Ireland in 1835, by Lloyd, Sabine, and Eoss ; and completed in England, Wales, and Scotland in 1837, by the same magneticians, assisted by Fox and Phillips. It was repeated in 1857 and following years by Sabine, Lloyd, Welsh, Haughton, Galbraith, and Stoney.