to the investigations themselves." Well would it be for the world and for truth if all scientific men could be persuaded to adopt the same admirable rule. Of this book, upwards of twenty editions were sold in England alone, to say nothing of America and the Continent, where it also found large and ready sale, having been translated into the French, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, and Italian languages.
The interest thus excited in the practical application of meteorology, enabled the distinguished author to assemble at Brussels, under the auspices of King Leopold, in the year 1853, a Congress of the chief nations interested in commerce, viz., England, Russia, Belgium, France, Holland, Sweden and Norway, Denmark, Portugal, and the United States, which Lt. Matthew Fontaine Maury represented. The object of this Congress was the still further development of meteorological research. It resulted in recommending the establishment of investigating boards throughout Europe, and a uniform system of observations—the principle Maury insisted on being as applicable to the land as to the sea.
Prussia, Spain, Sardinia, the free cities of Hamburg and Bremen, the Republic of Chili, and the Empires of Austria and Brazil, afterwards offered their co-operation in the same plan. The Pope established distinguishing flags to be worn at the mast heads of all vessels from the States of the Church, whose masters would co operate at sea in the new system of research.
In peace and in war the observations were to be carried on, and in case any of the vessels on board of which they were conducted should be captured, the abstract log was to be held sacred.
"Rarely," said Maury, in his account of this Congress, "has there been such a sublime spectacle presented to the scientific world before: all nations agreeing to unite and co-operate in carrying out according to the same plan one
