"6. That it would be most desirable that the observations so performed, both at the fixed stations and in the course of the expedition, should be communicated to Professor Lloyd.
"7. That Sir J. Herschel, Mr. Whewell, Mr. Peacock, and Professor Lloyd, be appointed a Committee to represent to Government these recommendations."
A memorial was addressed to the Government by the Committee above named, embodying the chief arguments for taking up the cause as a national concern, and specifying more particularly the objects proposed to be accomplished, and the means of their accomplishment. This memorial, on its presentation to Lord Melbourne, was not only supported by the personal arguments of the eminent philosophers by whom it was framed, but on its being referred by the Government to the President and Council of the Royal Society, (its acknowledged advisers upon all points of scientific inquiry,) by similar and even more urgent representations on their part, "who, on this occasion, in a manner most honourable to themselves, and casting behind them every feeling but an earnest desire to render available to science the ancient and established credit of their institution, threw themselves unreservedly and with their whole weight into the scale, with immediate and decisive effect."[1] The
