There are also many new experiments, investigations, and explorations, which neither private individuals, nor even corporate bodies, such as the Royal Society, the British Association, Geographical Society, can effectually make, and which only a Government can carry out, such as Arctic expeditions, trigonometrical surveys, deep sea dredging operations, magnetic observations, determinations of longitude, meteorological and astronomical observations, researches on tides, observations of earthquakes, determinations of the height of mountains and the density of the crust of the earth, experiments on the best form of ships, geographical explorations, and many others. It is clear from the enormous advantages which this nation has already derived from scientific discovery in physics and chemistry, pursued with only {61} the aid of the very limited means of private persons, that had research in those subjects been sufficiently supported, the manufactures, arts, commerce, wealth, and civilization of this country would have been much greater than they are; emigration also of the industrious classes, disease, pauperism, crime, the evil effects of famine, etc., would have been much less. The amount of knowledge and riches obtainable by means of research and invention is practically unlimited, and it is astonishing that this immense source of industry and wealth in a nation should have been so neglected by our Governments. The practical value of new scientific knowledge is vastly greater than that of all our goldfields or even of our coal supply, because it would not only enable us to obtain from coal several times the amount of available heat and mechanical power we now secure, but also to apply to our wants the numerous other materials composing the crust of our globe and the contents of our oceans; also all terrestrial forces, the internal heat, the tidal energy and atmospheric currents, and the immense amount of power this Earth is continually receiving from the Sun. Whilst at present vast amounts of materials and energy remain unutilized, nearly all those terrestrial substances and forces might probably be rendered of service to us if we possessed sufficient knowledge.