scholarly journals III. Description of the Great Melbourne telescope

1869 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 127-161 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
British Association ◽  
British Government ◽  
British Science ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Astronomical Research

In 1862 the authorities of the Colony of Victoria formed the design of adding to the Observatory, which they were then establishing at Melbourne, a powerful telescope which should be applied in reviewing the Nebulæ of the Southern Hemisphere. They applied through the Duke of Newcastle, then Foreign Secretary, to the President and Council of the Royal Society, for encouragement in this undertaking, and advice as to the best means of carrying it into execution. The subject was not new to that Body. They had been, conjointly with the British Association, engaged, though ineffectually, for several years in trying to induce the British Government to adopt a similar plan. With this object they had appointed a Committee, including several of the brightest names of British Science, to examine the subject thoroughly and recommend the plan which they considered most desirable to be adopted. Subsequent to their report, Mr. Lassell had actually constructed a 4-feet Newtonian, which he was using most successfully at Malta, M. L. Foucault, whose recent death all lament, had invented the silvered glass speculum which bears his name, and Mr. Warren De La Rue had changed Celestial Photography from a toy into a potent instrument of astronomical research. These new facts required new discussion, which was carefully made, but resulted in adopting the former report with little change. In consequence the legislature of Victoria, acting on the recommendation of our Pre­sident and Council, voted in 1865 the requisite sum; and Mr. Grubb undertook the con­struction of this gigantic equatorial, under the direction of a Committee consisting of the late Lord Rosse, Mr. Warren De La Rue, and myself. After Lord Rosse’s death, his son, the present Earl, was nominated to succeed him by the President. The instru­ment has been very successfully completed; and we hope that a detailed account of its construction will be acceptable, both from the interest which belongs to the accomplishment of a great undertaking, and because, though the late Lord Rosse and Mr. Lassell have published their methods of making large specula, the subject is by no means ex­hausted, and anything which lessens the difficulties which still beset it, and makes the use of large reflectors more attainable, cannot but tend to the progress of some of the most interesting branches of astronomy.

scholarly journals VI. Electrification of air, of vapour of water, and of other gases

1898 ◽  
Vol 191 ◽  
pp. 187-228 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Atmospheric Electricity ◽  
British Association ◽  
Present Communication ◽  
The Subject

1. In this paper we describe a long series or experiments on the electrification of air and other gases, with which we have been occupied from May, 1894, up to the present time (June, 1897). Some results of our earlier experiments, and of preliminary efforts to find convenient methods of investigation, have from time to time been communicated to the Royal Society, the British Association, and the Glasgow Philosophical Society. 2. The method for testing the electrification of air, which we used in our earliest experiments, was an application of the water-dropper (long well-known in the ordinary observation of atmospheric electricity). Its use by Maclean and Goto, in 1890, led to an interesting discovery that air in an enclosed vessel, previously non-electrified, becomes electrified by a jet of water falling through it. An investigation of properties of matter concerned in this effect, related as it is to the “development of electricity in the breaking up of a liquid into drops,” which had been discovered by Holmgren as early as 1873, and to the later investigations and discoveries described by Lenard, in his paper on the “Electricity of Waterfalls,” forms the subject of 25-37 of the present communication.

The National Institute of Oceanography

Polar Record ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 6 (41) ◽  
pp. 88-90
Author(s):  
G. E. R. Deacon
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Marine Biology ◽  
National Committee ◽  
British Government ◽  
Marine Biological ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biological Aspects ◽  
Set Up

In 1944 Vice-Admiral Sir John Edgell, K.B.E., C.B., F.R.S., then Hydrographer of the Navy, advised the British Government that in its contribution to research in oceanography this country had fallen seriously behind other countries, including many which had no comparable traditions of interest in the oceans and their navigation, and that an oceanographical institute should be set up in Great Britain. The subject was referred to the Royal Society, and the Oceanographical Sub-Committee of the National Committee for Geodesy and Geophysics showed itself, in a report which was accepted by the Society, to be strongly in favour of setting up a national oceanographical institute. It urged the primary need for researches of physical character because marine physical investigations had taken a secondary place to marine biology ever since the Challenger Expedition of 1872–76, and because the biological aspects were well looked after by existing authorities such as the Marine Biological Associations of the United Kingdom and Scotland, the Fisheries Laboratories at Lowestoft and Aberdeen, the Discovery Investigations, and marine biological laboratories associated with universities.

Science, Religion, and Psychical Research: The Monistic Thought of Sir Oliver Lodge

1978 ◽  
Vol 71 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 245-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
John D. Root
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Wave Theory ◽  
British Association ◽  
Psychical Research ◽  
Publication Record ◽  
Distinguished Career ◽  
British Science ◽  
Philosophy And Religion ◽  
Oliver Lodge ◽  
The University

In his long and distinguished career which bridged two centuries, Sir Oliver Lodge (1851–1940) was one of the most versatile intellectual figures in England. His discoveries in physics placed him in the first rank of British science. For his work in electricity, radio, and wave theory Lodge was awarded the Rumford and Alfred medals by the Royal Society. He also was a Romanes Lecturer at Oxford, a president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the first Principal of the University of Birmingham. Lodge's publication record is breathtaking: more than 1,200 items, including nearly forty books, over a sixty-year period. While more than half of these were purely scientific or technical, it is significant that more than 100 pieces dealt with psychical research and an additional 170 books and articles dealt with topics in philosophy and religion. More than half of Lodge's writings in this latter category appeared between 1896 and 1914.

scholarly journals Observations upon the normal and pathological histology and bacteriology of the oyster

1899 ◽  
Vol 64 (402-411) ◽  
pp. 239-241 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
British Association ◽  
Short Paper ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The Subject

This research was commenced three years ago, and has been carried on intermittently in the intervals of other work. Preliminary reports on some of our results have been laid before the British Association at the Ipswitch, Liverpool, Toronto, and Bristol meetings, and a short paper on one section of the subject was communicated to the Royal Society and printed in the 'Proceedings' last year, In the present paper we give a full account, with illustrations, of the detailed evidence upon which our various conclusions are based.

XIII. Contributions to terrestrial magnetism.—No. XI

1868 ◽  
Vol 158 ◽  
pp. 371-416 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
British Association ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Magnetic Survey ◽  
Polar Regions ◽  
Arctic Seas ◽  
Terrestrial Magnetism ◽  
Joint Application ◽  
Scientific Institutions ◽  
The Subject

The object of the present ( i. e. the Eleventh) Number of the Contributions to Terrestrial Magnetism is the completion of the great national undertaking, the Magnetic Survey of the South Polar Regions of the Globe, corresponding to the Epoch 1840—1845. The Survey originated in a Report presented to the British Association for the Advancement of Science at the Liverpool Meeting in 1837, entitled “ On the Variations of the Intensity of the Earth’s Magnetic Force observed at different points of the Earth’s Surface:” copies of this Report were widely circulated amongst the Members of the Association previously to the Meeting at Newcastle in the following year, 1838; and having received a favourable notice in the opening address of the then Secretaries of the Association, Dr. George Peacock and Sir Roderick Murchison, resolutions were passed by the General Committee, which are printed in pages xxi and xxii of the “Annual Report of the Proceedings at Newcastle in August 1838.” These resolutions having been formally communicated to the Royal Society, a joint committee of the two scientific institutions was appointed to bring the subject of the equipment of a naval expedition for magnetic observations in the Arctic Seas under the consideration of Her Majesty’s Government. A single sentence from the address of this Committee may be cited as evidencing the spirit in which the joint application of the Royal Society and of the British Association was made to Her Majesty’s Government.

scholarly journals I. On the photography of the Moon

1857 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 363-371
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Good Fortune ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Subject

The subject of lunar photography is one which has engaged the attention of scientific men almost from the first announcement of the possibility of fixing the images in the camera. Owing to the extreme difficulty of satisfying all the conditions of the problem to be solved, there are few good photographs of the moon yet in existence. It was my good fortune in the autumn of 1855 to obtain several excellent pictures of this kind, and since these form the starting-point of the work which, by the assistance of a grant from the Donation Fund of the Royal Society, I have been pursuing during the greater part of the last year, a detailed account of the means employed for their production will not, I think, be considered out of place here.

IV. On the structure and affinities of Eozoon Canadense . In a letter to the President. By W. B. Carpenter, M. D., F. R. S

1864 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 545-549 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
British Association ◽  
Animal Life ◽  
Geological Society ◽  
Charles Lyell ◽  
Stony Corals ◽  
Geological Position

I cannot doubt that your attention has been drawn to the discovery announced by Sir Charles Lyell in his Presidential Address at the late Meeting of the British Association, of large masses of a fossil organism referable to the Foraminiferous type, near the base of the Laurentian series of rocks in Canada. The geological position of this fossil (almost 40,000 feet beneath the base of the Silurian system) is scarcely more remarkable than its zoological relations; for there is found in it the evidence of a most extraordinary development of that Rhizopod type of animal life which at the present time presents itself only in forms of comparative insignificance —a development which enabled it to separate carbonate of lime from the ocean-waters in quantity sufficient to produce masses rivalling in bulk and solidity those of the stony corals of later epochs, and thus to furnish (as there seems good reason to believe) the materials of those calcareous strata which occur in the higher parts of the Laurentian series. Although a detailed account of this discovery, including the results of the microscopic examinations into the structure of the fossil which have been made by Dr. Dawson and myself, has been already communicated to the Geological Society by Sir "William E. Logan, I venture to believe that the Fellows of the Royal Society may be glad to be more directly made acquainted with my view of its relations to the types of Foraminifera which I have already described in the Philosophical Transactions.

scholarly journals V. A comparison of the most notable disturbances of the magnetic declination in 1858 and 1859 at Kew and Nertschinsk, preceded by a brief retrospective view of the progress of the investiga­tion into the laws and causes of the magnetic disturbances

1864 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 247-252
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
British Association ◽  
British Government ◽  
Magnetic Declination ◽  
Retrospective View ◽  
Distinct Branch ◽  
Magnetic Disturbances ◽  
Magnetic Phenomena

The author commences this paper by taking a retrospective view of the principal facts which have been established regarding the magnetic disturb­ances, considered as a distinct branch of the magnetic phenomena of the globe, from the time when they were first made the objects of systematic investigation by associations formed for that express purpose, at Berlin in 1828 and at Göttingen in 1834, and dwelling more particularly on the results subsequently obtained by the more complete and extended researches instituted in 1840 by the British Government on the joint recommendation of the Royal Society and of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

scholarly journals IV. Observations on the parallel roads of Glen Roy, and other parts of Lochaber in Scotland, with an attempt to prove that they are of marine origin

1839 ◽  
Vol 129 ◽  
pp. 39-81 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Physical Structure ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
Marine Origin ◽  
Geological Society ◽  
The Third ◽  
Considerable Length ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Absolute Altitude

After the two elaborate memoirs which were read nearly at the same time, before the Edinburgh Royal Society and the Geological Society of London, by Sir Thomas Lauder Dick and Dr. Macculloch, on the parallel roads of Glen Roy and the neighbouring valleys, any detailed account of the physical structure of that remarkable district would be superfluous. But from the excellence of these papers and the high authority of their authors, it is necessary carefully to consider the theories they have advanced, —a necessity I feel the more strongly, from having been convinced during the few first days of my examination of the district, that their conclusions were impregnable. Moreover the results to which I have arrived, if proved, are of so much greater geological importance than the mere explaining the origin of the roads , that I must beg to be permitted to enter into the subject in detail. Section I. — Description of the Shelves . The parallel roads, shelves, or lines, as they have been indifferently called, are most plainly developed in Glen Roy. They extend in lines, absolutely horizontal, along the steep grassy sides of the mountains, which are covered with a mantle, unusually thick, of slightly argillaceous alluvium. They consist of narrow terraces, which, however, are never quite flat like artificial ones, but gently slope towards the valley, with an average breadth of about sixty feet. There are only four shelves which are plainly marked for any considerable length; the lowest one according to Macculloch is 972 feet above the sea; the next above it is 212 feet higher, arid the third, eighty-two above the second, or 1266 above the sea; the fourth occurs only in Glen Gluoy; it is twelve feet higher than the third. I shall refer to them either by their absolute altitude, or as being the upper or lower one in the part under description, and not as first, second, or third; for it will be hereafter seen that others occur in every respect similar, only less plainly developed.

Expedition turned Invasion: The 1888 Sikkim Expedition through British, Indian and Chinese eyes

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
YI MENG CHENG
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
British Government ◽  
British India ◽  
Intelligence Gathering ◽  
Peace Negotiations ◽  
British Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
The Subject ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
Chinese And English

Abstract A fresh look at the 1888 Sikkim Expedition using both Chinese and English language sources yields very different conclusions from that of previous research on the subject. During the course of policymaking, the British Foreign Office and the British Government of India did not collaborate to devise a plan to invade Tibet; conversely, their aims differed and clashed frequently. During the years leading to war, the largest newspapers in British India gave plenty of coverage to the benefits of trade with Tibet, thus influencing British foreign policy and contributing indirectly to the outbreak of war. The Tibetan army was soundly defeated in the war, while the British troops suffered only light casualties. Although the Tibetan elites remained committed to the war, the lower classes of Tibetan society quickly grew weary of it. During the war, the British made much use of local spies and enjoyed an advantage in intelligence gathering, which contributed greatly to their victory. Finally, although the war was initially fought over trade issues, the demarcation of the Tibetan-Sikkim border replaced trade issues as the main point of contention during the subsequent peace negotiations. During the negotiations, Sheng Tai, the newly appointed Amban of Tibet, tried his best to defend China's interests.

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