THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 253 



men as I am about to name from their distant 

 abodes, and studies, to cross the seas solely to 

 participate in such occupations. 



If the Sectional rooms had not afforded ample 

 information, in the communications which were 

 made, and the discussions which followed them, we 

 should not have had Dalion, and Airy, Brown, Sir 

 David Brewster, and Babbage, Drs. Thompson, and 

 Lardner, Whewell, and Powell, Dr. Roget, Professor 

 Philips, Professor Johnston, Mr. Bailey, Sir Thomas 

 Brisbane, Mr. Lubbock, and many others. 



If the pursuits of Geology w^ere not mainly aided 

 by these communications and discussions, it is not 

 probable, that those men, who are certainly the very 

 best judges in the empire of the merit of those pa- 

 pers, and of the manner in which they are investiga- 

 ted, and of the maps, plans, and sections, many of 

 which owe their very existence to this association, 

 should be found in these rooms year after year. 

 For, in Edinburgh or Dublin, and most of them at 

 both, we have seen Sedgwick, Buckland, Oreenough, 

 Murchison, Lyell, Wm. Smith, and Griffith. 



And this desire to be present at their meetings is 

 not confined to our own countrymen ; at Edinburgh 

 we saw that eminent Frenchman, Arago ; at Dublin, 

 Baron Barclay de Tolly ; at both places Professor 

 Agases, of Neufchatel, Professor Moll, of Utrecht, 

 Dr. Piethman, of Berlin, Col. Dick, of New Orleans, 

 two professors, from New York, two noblemen, from 

 Norway ; besides many other gentlemen, lovers of 

 science, from France, whose names it is not necess- 

 ary to enumerate. 



This annual assemblage of scientific men from 

 every part of the world, must create a degree of 

 interest, which we have not perceived any other 

 society that has been instituted to have previously 

 done ; and no one can be justly entitled to censure 

 the Association, who has not attended strictly to 

 their proceedings, and read their publications. It is 

 very true, that the newspapers will seize on those 



