22 Dr Whewell's Inaugural Lecture. 



that the list of imports will hereafter, with great advantage be 

 enlarged. Who knows what beautiful materials for the makers 

 of furniture are to be found irt the collections of woods from 

 the various forests of the Indian Archipelago, or of Australia, 

 or of Tasmn,nia, or of New Zealand ? Who knows what we 

 may hereafter discover to have been collected of fruits and 

 oils, and medicines and dyes ; of threads and cordage, as we 

 had here from New Zealand and from China examples of 

 such novelties ; of gums and vegetable substances, which 

 may, in some unforeseen manner, promote and facilitate the 

 processes of art \ How recent is the application of caoutchouc 

 to general purposes ! Yet we know now — and on this occa- 

 sion America would have taught us if we had not known — 

 that there is scarcely any use to which it may not be applied 

 with advantage. If a teacher in our time were to construct 

 maxims like those of the son of Sirach in the ancient Jewish 

 times — ^like him who says (Ecclus. xxxix., 2(j) " The principal 

 things for the whole use of man's life are water, fire, iron, 

 and salt, flour o^ wheat, honey, milk, and the blood of the 

 grape, oil, and clothing" — he could hardly fail to make addi- 

 tions to the list, and these would be from the vegetable world. 

 Again, how recent is the discovery of the uses of gutta percha! 

 In the great collection were some of the original specimens 

 sent by Dr Montgomery to the India House, whence speci- 

 mens were distributed to various experimentalists.* Yet 

 how various and peculiar are now its uses, such as no other 

 substance could replace ! And is it not to be expected that 

 our contemporaries, joining the insight of science to the in- 

 stinct of art, shall discover, among the various sources of 

 vegetable wealth which the Great Exhibition has disclosed 

 to them, substances as peculiar and precious, in the manner 

 of their utility, as those aids thus recently obtained for the 

 uses of life ? 



And before we quit this subject, let us reflect, as it is im- 

 possible, I think, not to reflect, when viewing thus the con- 

 stantly enlarging sphere of the utility which man draws from 

 the vegetable world, what a view this also gives us of the 



* " lUuBtrated Catalogue," p. 876. 



