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x Society whether it see fit to make such a grant, and to entrust the work to me; if so, I should be prepared to set out by the middle of next month.

"I have the honour to be, My Lord, "Your very obedient Servant, "



The writer's views were promptly laid by the President before the Council of the Royal Society, where they were supported by the advocacy of Doctor Robinson, General Sabine, Sir Charles Lyell, Sir Roderick I. Murchison, and others. In result the Author was requested to proceed with the inquiry, and a grant made of the entire sum asked for. This amount proved, in the end, inadequate, as did also the period of time which it was proposed to devote to the investigation; so that the Author himself defrayed about two-fifths of the entire cost of the expedition, and found it necessary to devote to it more than double the time he intended beforehand. A further sum of Fifty Pounds toward procuring the Photographs, from which many of the Illustrations of these volumes have been reproduced, was voted by the Royal Society after the Author's departure, and the fact was communicated to him by telegraph.

A comparatively small proportion of the large collection of scientifically valuable Photographs made in the convulsed regions have been now reproduced, the