In recent years, the writer who has done the most good service in bringingscientific methods to bear on the collection and comparison of statistics,is M. Quetelet, the Director of the Royal Observatory in Bruxelles,President of the Central Commission of Statistics, and the PerpetualSecretary of the Academy of Sciences. Nearly all the learned Academies ofEurope claim the credit of enrolling him as a member. He was amongst thesmall number of illustrious men, including Professor Babbage, Whewell,Malthus, Drinkwater, Jones, Col. Sykes, &c., who at the third meeting ofthe British Association for the advancement of Science, at Cambridge in1833, succeeded in establishing the special Section F on Economic Scienceand Statistics, and which afterwards led to the formation of the StatisticalSociety of London and various provincial Societies. He was also theoriginator of the International Statistical Congresses, which have been souseful in improving the methods of collection and publication of facts inall branches of statistical enquiry by every Government in Europe.