Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/16

viii strong interest taken in the cause by their President, the Marquis of Northampton, on all occasions a warm and zealous friend to science, contributed, without doubt, not a little to this result.

The following Report of a joint committee of physics and meteorology, adopted by the Council of the Royal Society, on the propriety of recommending the establishment of fixed magnetic observatories, and the equipment of a naval expedition for magnetic observations in the antarctic seas, to Her Majesty's Government, was presented to Lord Melbourne by the deputation named in the appended resolutions of the Council:—

"The subject of terrestrial magnetism has recently received some very important accessions which have materially affected not only the point of view in which henceforward it will be theoretically contemplated, but also the modes of observation which will require to be adopted for completing our knowledge of the actual state of the magnetic phenomena, and furnishing accurate data for the construction and verification of theoretical systems. It was for a long time supposed that the changes in the position assumed by the needle at any particular point on the earth's surface, might be conceived as resulting from regular laws of periodicity, having for their arguments, first, a great magnetic cycle of several centuries, depending on unknown, and perhaps internal movements or relations; and, secondly, on the periodic