ration and hearty assistance which I have ever received at their hands. It is to them that I have looked to aid my inexperience, and to supply my manifold deficiencies, and I have not been disappointed. To those who are the more permanent officers of the Society, the Treasurer and the Secretaries, my obhgations are particularly great, and I will venture to add, that to them, as well as to the other mem- bers of the Council, your thanks are due as well as mine.
The past year has indeed been to that portion of the Royal So- ciety which takes an active part in its affairs, one of more than usual labour and exertion, — of labour and exertion, destined, as I hope, to produce rich and ample fruit. The great and marking peculiarity which has attended it, has been the sailing of the Antarctic Expe- dition. The importance of following up in the southern regions of the globe the magnetic inquiries so interesting to men of science in Europe, was strongly felt by one of our distinguished Fellows, Ma- jor Sabine, and by him brought before the notice of the British As- sociation at their meeting at Newcastle, as he had also previously done at Dublin. That great assemblage of men of science, con- curring in the views of Major Sabine, resolved to suggest to Her Majesty's Government the propriety of sending out a scientific ex- pedition; and the Royal Society lost no time in warmly and zeal- ously seconding the recommendation. It would, Gentlemen, be an idle inquiry to ask whether the success of the application be owing to the British Association or to the Royal Society. It would seem, indeed, probable, that, considering the financial difficulties of the time, the Government might have hardly considered itself justified in yielding to the prayers of either body separately on this occasion ; and if to the British Association be the glory of the first proposal of this Expedition, to the Royal Society belongs the praise of perse- verance in seconding the recommendation, and of laborious and earnest endeavours to aid in rendering it in every respect as efficient as possible. It is my duty as your President to return my thanks and yours to Lord Melbourne, Lord Minto, Lord Monteagle, Sir Hussey Vivian, and Sir Richard Jenkins, the Chairman of the Ho- nourable Court of Directors of the East India Company, for the urbanity and kindness with which they have received and acted on the suggestion of your Council, and for the confidence which the Government reposed in us, when they asked for our assistance in instructing the officers to whom the Expedition has been entrusted.
In compliance with the request conveyed to us by the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Council transmitted to the Government a body of hints and instructions in different branches of science, which I trust are likely to be of material use both to the principal and to the subsidiary objects of the Antarctic Expedition.
These hints and instructions would have been far less extensive and efficient if the Council had not been able to have recourse to the several Scientific Committees, of whose formation the Society is already aware. The Expedition has now sailed, amply provided with the best scientific instruments and furnished with ample scientific instructions: it is commanded by one well acquainted both
