THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.

Monday Evening, January 28, 1861.

A crowded meeting of the members and their friends assembled at Burlington House, on Monday, January 28th, to receive the Reports of the late Expeditions for the survey of the North Atlantic Telegraph route.

The Lord Ashburton, President of the Society, in the Chair.

Among the many distinguished and influential personages present were Sir R. I. Murchison, His Excellency the Danish Minister M. de Billé, Count Apponyi, Sir Walter Trevelyan, Admiral Sir Thomas Herbert, General Portlock, R.E., Lord Alfred Churchill, M.P., Sir Thomas Fremantle, Sir H. Maxwell, Sir John Login, Sir Charles Bright, Captains Collinson and Ommanney, Sir F. L. M‘Clintock, Sir F. Nicolson, Sherard Osborn, J. Stopford, G. A. Bedford, Byron Drury, A. Ryder, and Pike, R.N., Hon. A. Kinnaird, M.P., Mr. J. Wyld, M.P., Mr. Cornelius Grinnell, of New York, Dr. Hamel, of Russia, Colonels Loyd and Cartwright, Major Edwards, R.E., Captains Sydney Webb, C. Johnston, R. Burton, Claude Clerk, E. M. Jones, and D. J. Herd, Drs. Ogle, Lister, Bennett, Bigsby, and M‘Cosh, Messrs. J. R. Croskey, J. E. Davis, W. J. Hamilton, J. Crawfurd, Brooking, C. White, R. Bentley, J. Murray, C. V. Walker, George Saward, Arrowsmith, E. O. Smith, Cook, Gould, Vaux, Finlay, Rev. C. P. Wilbraham, and Colonel Shaffner, Dr. Holland, Pliny Miles, and Geo. F. Train, of the United States.

Sir Charles Bright, General Eber, the Rev. C. J. Fynes Clinton, Consul C. P. Hodgson, of Japan, the Rev. E. H. Mainwaring Sladen, the Marquis of Sligo, the Rev. C. Hill Wallace, the Rev. S. E. Wharton, Lieutenant A. S. Windus, R.N., and James Aiken, Walter Brodie, James Campbell, John E. Davis, R.N., N. Vaughan Edwards Vaughan, J. Wilson Holme, John Learmouth, Alexander Macmillan, George Newman, G. H. Oliphant Ferguson, Julius Reuter, Frederick Simpson, Ronald Thomson of Tehran, John Walker, and W. Warder were elected Fellows.

THE NORTH ATLANTIC TELEGRAPH.

The Lord Ashburton.—The subjects for our consideration to-day are of so interesting a character, that I should be doing unwisely if I were to occupy your time beyond a few moments, in making such preliminary observations as are expected from your President.

The papers which are about to be read relate altogether to the physical and geographical facts upon which the proposition has been based for the extension of the Electric Telegraph line between this country and America, by the route of the Færöe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador. It comes especially within the province of the Royal Geographical Society to receive and to record those facts as purely belonging to the science of Physical Geography. We are so fortunate as to have a great many labourers working for us in the field of geography; some who have been sent out by the Society, like Speke and Livingstone, are doing our work, and at the same time doing work for many other societies. We have labourers also not less diligent, and not less useful to us as well as to the world: they are those who are occupied in other pursuits, but who come to us to record the facts they have observed, and to enable us to treasure them up as the material for future research.

Among the labours of this class, not the least valuable are the researches which we are met to record to-day. They were undertaken not for the purpose of acquiring geographical knowledge simply, but in order to carry out the great and beneficent scheme of connecting the two continents of Europe and America by means of telegraphic communication. Yet, at the same time that we receive these facts, we must take care not to suffer ourselves to be led away into that which is altogether out of our province, an attempt to pronounce any judgment upon the value of that scheme. That is a question for others to decide, not for us.

Therefore, whilst we ourselves may look upon the facts that may be presented to us with philosophic calmness, there may, on the other hand, be those who are so deeply interested in the material success of electric telegraph connection with America, as to be drawn into an eager contest to set up the merits of one scheme in preference to those of another. Should there be any gentlemen present prepared to carry these feelings into the discussion, I feel assured they will remember this, that it is those who are beaten that generally complain, and that the man who is the winner at chess is not the man to throw the pieces at his adversary’s head. I believe we shall have no symptoms of distress exhibited; that we shall not have anybody manifesting the conviction passing in his mind that he is worsted in the argument.

I will now call upon Sir Leopold M‘Clintock to read the first paper that is set down on the list.