Decline of Science in England by Charles Babbage (red white royal blue txt) 📖

what extent this doctrine is correct, may perhaps yet admit of

doubt. It cannot, however, admit of a doubt, that it is unwise

to crown it with official authority, and thus expose the officers

of their service to depend on means which may be quite

insufficient for their purpose.

 

How the Board of Longitude, after EXPRESSLY DIRECTING THIS

INSTRUMENT TO BE MADE AND TRIED, could come to the decision at

which they arrived, appears inexplicable. The known difference

of opinion amongst the best observers respecting the repeating

principle, ought to have rendered them peculiarly cautious, nor

ought the opinion of a Troughton, that instruments of less than

one foot in diameter may be considered, “FOR ASTRONOMY, AS LITTLE

BETTER THAN PLAYTHINGS,” [Memoirs of the Astronomical Society,

Vol.I. p.53.] to have been rejected without the most carefully

detailed experiments. There were amongst that body, persons who

must have examined minutely the work on the Pendulum. Captain

Kater must have felt those difficulties in the perusal of it

which other observers have experienced; and he who was placed in

the Board of Longitude especially for his knowledge of

instruments, might, in a few hours, have arrived at more decisive

facts. But perhaps I am unjust. Captain Kater’s knowledge

rendered it impossible for him to have been ignorant of the

difficulties, and his candour would have prevented him from

concealing them: he must, therefore, after examining the

subject, have been outvoted by his lay-brethren who had dispensed

with that preliminary.

 

It would be unjust, before quitting this subject, not to mention

with respect the acknowledgment made by an officer of the naval

service of the errors into which he also fell from this same

level. Lieutenant Foster, aware of the many occasions on which

Captain Sabine had employed this instrument, and knowing that he

considered each division as equal to one second, never thought

that a doubt could exist on the subject, and made all his

calculations accordingly. When Captain Kater made him acquainted

with the mistake, Lieutenant Foster immediately communicated a

paper [The paper of Lieutenant Foster is printed in the

Philosophical Transactions, 1827, p.122, and is worth

consulting.] to the Royal Society, in which he states the

circumstance most fully, and recomputed all the observations in

which that instrument was used. Unfortunately, from the original

observations of Mr. Ross being left on board the Fury at the time

of her loss, the transcripts of his results could not be

recomputed like the rest, and were consequently useless.

 

SECTION 5.

 

OF THE UNION OF SEVERAL OFFICES IN ONE PERSON.

 

Although the number of situations to which persons conversant

with science may hope to be appointed, is small, yet it has

somewhat singularly happened, that instances of one individual,

holding more than one such appointment, are frequent. Not to

speak of those held by the late Dr. Young, we have at present:—

 

MR. POND—Astronomer Royal, Inspector of Chronometers, and

Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac.

 

CAPTAIN SABINE — An officer of artillery on leave of absence

from his regiment; Secretary of the Royal Society; and Scientific

Adviser of the Admiralty.

 

MR. BRANDE—Clerk of the Irons at the Royal Mint; Professor of

Chemistry at the Royal Institution; Analyser of Rough Nitre, &c.

to the East-India Company; Lecturer on Materia Medica,

Apothecaries’ Hall; Superintending Chemical Operator at ditto;

Lecturer on Chemistry at ditto; Editor of the Royal Institution

Journal; and Foreign Secretary to the Royal Society.

 

One should be led to imagine, from these unions of scientific

offices, either that science is too little paid, and that

gentlemen cannot be found to execute the offices separately at

the salaries offered; or else, that it is too well paid, since

each requires such little attention, that almost any number can

be executed by one person.

 

The Director of the Royal Observatory has a larger and better

collection of instruments, and more assistants to superintend,

than any other astronomer in the world; and, to do it properly,

would require the almost undivided attention of a man in the

vigour of youth. Nor would a superintendent of the Nautical

Almanac, if he made a point of being acquainted with every thing

connected with his subject, find his situation at all a sinecure.

Slight as are the duties of the Foreign Secretary of the Royal

Society, it might have been supposed that Mr. Brande would

scarcely, amongst his multifarious avocations, have found time

even for them. But it may be a consolation to him to know, that

from the progress the Society is making, those duties must become

shortly, if they are not already, almost extinct.

 

Doubtless the President, in making that appointment, looked most

anxiously over the list of the Royal Society. He doubtless knew

that the Academics of Sweden, of Denmark, of Scotland, of

Prussia, of Hanover, and of France, derived honour from the

discoveries of their Secretaries;—that they prided themselves in

the names of Berzelius, of Oersted, of Brewster, of Encke, of

Gauss, and of Cuvier. Doubtless the President must have been

ambitious that England should contribute to this galaxy of glory,

that the Royal Society should restore the lost Pleiad [Pleiades,

an assemblage of seven stars in the neck of the constellation

Taurus. There are now only six of them visible to the naked

eye.—HUTTON’S DICTIONARY—Art. Pleiades.] to the admiring

science of Europe. But he could discover no kindred name amongst

the ranks of his supporters, and forgot, for a moment, the

interest of the Society, in an amiable consideration for the

feelings of his surrounding friends. For had the President

chosen a brighter star, the lustre of his other officers might

have been overpowered by its splendour: but relieved from the

pain of such a contrast, he may still retain the hope, that, by

their united brightness, these suns of his little system shall

yet afford sufficient light to be together visible to distant

nations, as a faint NEBULA in the obscure horizon of English

science.

 

SECTION 6.

 

OF THE FUNDS OF THE SOCIETY.

 

Although the Society is not in a state approaching to poverty, it

may be useful to offer a few remarks respecting the distribution

of its money.

 

EXPENSE OF ENGRAVINGS FOR SIR E. HOME’S PAPERS.—The great

expense of the engravings which adorn the volumes of the

Philosophical Transactions, is not sufficiently known. That many

of those engravings are quite essential for the papers they

illustrate, and that those papers are fit for the Transactions, I

do not doubt; but, some inquiry is necessary, when such large

sums are expended. I shall endeavour, therefore, to approximate

to the sum these engravings have cost the Royal Society.

 

Previous to 1810, there are upwards of seventy plates to papers

of Sir E. Home’s; in many of these, which I have purposely

separated, the workmanship is not so minute as in the succeeding

ones. Since 1810, there have occurred 187 plates attached to

papers of the same author. Many of these have cost from twelve to

twenty guineas each plate; but I shall take five pounds as the

average cost of the first portion, and twelve as that of the

latter. This would produce,

70 X 5 = 350

187 X 12 = 2244

…… –—

…… L2594

 

As this is only proposed as a rough approximation, let us omit

the odd hundreds, and we have two thousand pounds expended in

plates only on ONE branch of science, and for one person!

Without calling in question the importance of the discoveries

contained in those papers, it may be permitted to doubt whether

such a large sum might not have been expended in a manner more

beneficial to science. Not being myself conversant with those

subjects, I can only form an opinion of the value from extraneous

circumstances. Had their importance been at all equal to their

number, I should have expected to have heard amongst the learned

of other countries much more frequent mention of them than I have

done, and even the Council of the Royal Society would scarcely

have excluded from their Transactions one of those productions

which they had paid for as a lecture.

 

It might also have been more delicate not to have placed on the

Council so repeatedly a gentleman, for whose engravings they were

annually expending, during the last twenty years, about an

hundred pounds. On the other hand, when the Council lent Sir E.

Home the whole of those valuable plates to take off impressions

for his large work on Comparative Anatomy, of which they

constitute almost the whole, it might have been as well not to

have obliterated from each plate all indication of the source to

which he was indebted for them.

 

THE PRESIDENT’S DISCOURSES.—I shall mention this circumstance,

because it fell under my own observation.

 

Observing in the annual accounts a charge of 381L 5s. for the

President’s Speeches, I thought it right to inquire into the

nature of this item. Happening to be on the Council the next

year, I took an opportunity, at an early meeting of that Council,

to ask publicly for an explanation of the following resolution,

which stands in the Council-books for Dec. 21, 1828.

 

“Resolved, That 500 copies of the President’s Discourses, about

to be printed by Mr. Murray, be purchased by the Society, at the

usual trade price.”

 

The answer given to that question was, “THAT THE COUNCIL HAD

AGREED TO PURCHASE THESE VOLUMES AT THAT PRICE, IN ORDER TO

INDUCE MR. MURRAY TO PRINT THE PRESIDENT’S SPEECHES.”

 

I remarked at the time that such an answer was quite

unsatisfactory, as the following statement will prove.

 

The volume consists of 160 pages, or twenty sheets, and the

following prices are very liberal:

 

L s. d.

To composing and printing twenty sheets, at

3L. per sheet……….. …. 60 0 0

Twenty reams of paper, at 3L. per ream ….. 60 0 0

Corrections, alterations, &c. ……… 30 0 0

 

Total cost of 500 copies …… 150 0 0

 

Now upon the subject of the expense of printing, the Council

could not plead ignorance. The Society are engaged in printing,

and in paying printers’ bills, too frequently to admit of such an

excuse; and several of the individual members must have known,

from their own private experience, that the cost of printing such

a volume was widely different from that they were about to pay,

as an inducement to a bookseller to print it on his own account.

Here, then, was a sum of above two hundred pounds beyond what was

necessary for the object, taken from the funds of the Royal

Society; and for what purpose? Did the President and his

officers ever condescend to explain this transaction to the

Council; or were they expected, as a matter of course, to

sanction any thing proposed to them? Could they have been so

weak, or so obedient, as to order the payment of above three

hundred and eighty pounds, to induce a bookseller to do what they

might have done themselves for less than half the sum? Or did

they wish to make Mr. Murray a present of two hundred pounds? If

so, he must have had powerful friends in the Council, and it is

fit the Society should know who they were; for they were not

friends, either to its interests or to its honour.

 

The copies, so purchased, were ordered by the Council to be sold

to members of the Society at 15s. each: (the trade price is 15s.

3d.) and out of the five hundred copies twenty-seven only have

been sold: the remainder encumber our shelves. Thus, after four

years, the Society are still losers of three hundred and sixty

Pounds on this transaction.

 

ON THE CONVERSION OF THE GREENWICH OBSERVATIONS INTO PASTEBOARD.

—Although the printing of these observations is not paid for out

of the funds of the