ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 7 



ing cholera in that region, and the great heat of the season. The place and 

 time for the next regular meeting have not yet been determined by the 

 Executive Committee. 



The twenty-second annual meeting of the British Association, for the 

 Advancement of Science, was held at Belfast, Ireland, September 1st ; Col 

 Sabine presiding. The attendance was somewhat less numerous than in 

 1851, and the papers read, had for the most part, a local rather than a gen- 

 eral-interest. Among the important measures taken by the Association, 

 was a strong representation to the British Government, respecting the 

 importance of sending out an expedition for the purpose of studying the 

 phenomena of tides, especially those of the Atlantic Ocean. The President 

 elected for 1853 is "William Hopkins, President of the Geological Society, 

 and of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. 



From the annual address of the President we copy the following passa- 

 ges : "Hitherto the researches of Sidereal Astronomy, even in their 

 widest extension, had manifested the existence of those forces only with 

 which we are familiar in our own solar svstem. The refinements of modern 



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observation and the perfection of theoretical representation had assured us 

 that the orbits in which the double stars, immeasurably distant from us, 

 revolve around each other, are governed by the same laws of molecular 

 attraction which determine the orbits of the planetary bodies of our own 

 system. But the Nebulae have revealed to us the probable existence in the 

 yet more distant universe, of forces with which we were previously unac- 

 quainted. The highest authorities in this most advanced of all the sciences 

 acknowledge themselves unable even to conjecture the nature of the forces 

 which have produced and maintain the diverse, yet obviously systematic, 

 arrangement of the hosts of stars, which constitute those few of the Spiral 

 Nebulae which have been hitherto examined. Hence the importance of 

 increasing our knowledge of the variety of forms in which the phenomena 

 present themselves, by a similar examination of the Southern Heavens to 

 that which Lord Rosse is accomplishing in the Northern Heavens. In 

 addition we can scarcely forbear to covet at least an occasional glance at 

 bodies which from their greater proximity have more intimate relations with 

 ourselves, and which, when viewed with so vast an increase of optical power, 

 may afford instruction of the highest value in many branches of physical 

 science. In our own satellite, for example, we have the opportunity of 

 studying the physical conformation and superficial phenomena of a body 

 composed, as we believe mainly at least, of the same materials as those of 

 our own globe, but possessing neither atmosphere nor sea. "When we 

 reflect how much of the surface of the earth consists of sedimentary 

 deposites, and consequently 'how large a portion of the whole field of geo- 

 logical research is occupied with strata which owe their principal charac- 



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