Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/38

xxx which has been uniformly paid to their suggestions, and of the ample provision which has been made for the accomplishment of the various objects of the expedition.


 * Royal Society, 8th August, 1839.

The Council of the Royal Society are very strongly impressed with the number and importance of the desiderata in physical and meteorological science, which may wholly or in part be supplied by observations made under such highly favourable and encouraging circumstances as those afforded by the liberality of Her Majesty's Government on this occasion. While they wish therefore to omit nothing in their enumeration of those objects which appear to them deserving of attentive inquiry on sound scientific grounds, and from which consequences may be drawn of real importance, either for the settlement of disputed questions, or for the advancement of knowledge in any of its branches,—they deem it equally their duty to omit or pass lightly over several points which, although not without a certain degree of interest, may yet be regarded in the present state of science rather as matters of abstract curiosity than as affording data for strict reasoning; as well as others, which may be equally well or better elucidated by inquiries instituted at home and at leisure.

The subject of most importance, beyond all question, to which the attention of Captain James Clark Ross and his officers can be turned,—and that which must be considered as, in an emphatic manner, the great scientific object of the Expedition,—is that of Terrestrial Magnetism; and this will be considered: 1st, as regards those accessions to our knowledge which may be supplied by observations to be made during the progress of the Expedition, independently of any concert with or co-operation of other observers; and 2ndly, as regards those which depend on and require such concert; and are therefore to be considered with reference to the observations about to be carried on simultaneously in the fixed magnetic observatories, ordered to be established by Her Majesty's Government with this especial view, and in the other similar observatories, both public and