'The Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society. From January 1863 to December 1864. (Edited by the Secretary.) Volume XVII.' [‎96] (125/524)

XCV1
PROCEEDINGS OF THE
claim to almost every improvement in our inclustiial arts and manu-
factureSj but these are perhaps not hei highest triumphs. She has
taught us indeed to employ her truths for our own advantage, but she
also teaches us the higher lesson of appreciating those truths for their
own sake, as well as for the results we may yet hope to obtain from
them; and the study of truth and its influences direct or indirect, upon
the mental and moral habits of man, is fai beyond the commercial
value of all the advantages themselves alone considered that have re
sulted from the application of science to the advancement of man’s
physical welfare. Truth itself is more valuable than its applications,
which can scarcely be said to be within the province of true science.
But meteorology and magnetism have already yielded applications of
no small importance to human welfare, and we know not what they
may yield in the future. Admiral Fitzroy’s Storm Signals have proved
what use may be made of the accumulated observations of many years,
so uninteresting to turn over, but yet so well worth all the trouble
of collecting.
Terrestrial magnetism is one of the very youngest of the sciences.
Cavallo, Lorimer, and a few others towards the end of the last century in
troduced it, but it was not until 1819 that Hansteen’s famous dissertation
was published. The Gottingen Magnetic Observatory was only erected in
1833 by the celebrated Gauss, who first so ably sketched the mathe
matical theory of this science : and i^rago and Humboldt bad not
long preceded him in erecting the first observatory of the kind. Owing
to the great attention, however, which it has attracted from the differ
ent Governments of Europe, it has made most remarkable progress within
the last twenty years. We cannot divine what mysteries it may yet
reveal, but from the discoveries already made, we cannot hesitate in
employing in relation to it the words of Humboldt—“ When we see
new light dawning from a previously unknown group of phenomena in
the material world, we may the more hopefully think ourselves on the
verge of new discoveries, if the relations of the new facts to those with
which we were previously acquainted appear obscure or even contradic
tory.
Like all the other physical sciences, terrestrial magnetism primaril
demands the aid of extensive and varied observations, without which ]
cannot be advanced. In a word, to quote again from the same illnstr
ous author— 4 ‘ The surest means of exhausting the measurable variation