276 Proceedings of the British Association for 1850. 



that, from the way in which I have employed it, I have not 

 altogether proved myself unworthy of the confidence which 

 you thon reposed in me. I have at least this to boast of — 

 which it is not every Sovereign who can congratulate him- 

 self upon at the close of his career — that I shall deliver to 

 my successor my dominion in a more prosperous and in a 

 more flourishing state than I received it. But more : I have 

 this additional consolation, in entering again among your 

 ranks, that at least I shall not be visited by the affliction 

 which pressed so heavily upon the mind of Solomon, that 

 when he had laboured in the pursuit of wisdom and in the 

 advancement of knowledge, he should leave his portion to 

 one who had not laboured therein ; for I deliver my authority 

 to one, in comparison of whose achievements, whatever I 

 myself may, by the partiality of my friends, be supposed to 

 have effected, fades into nothing. There is not a spot in the 

 world to which the light of physical investigation has pierced, 

 where his name has not become known. There has been no 

 period in the course of this Association, prosperous and suc- 

 cessful as it has been from its origin, in which we have not 

 been enlightened by his discoveries and aided by his counsel. 

 There is not a department in that multifarious lore with 

 which we have employed ourselves, on which he has not, in 

 the course of his investigations, thrown a brilliant light ; and 

 what I prize beyond all that he has achieved — as the distinc- 

 tion or the fame of the whole of that career, which has been 

 so brilliant, is, that there has not been any stain or any cloud 

 to obscure the moral purity, the religious veneration, the 

 upright and conscientious spirit, which, more than all know- 

 ledge, and more than all genius, is the noblest prerogative 

 of man. When I resign my throne of office to Sir David 

 Brewster, I know that that act is perhaps the greatest ser- 

 vice which, in the course of my connection with the Associa- 

 tion, I have ever rendered to it." 



Dr Robinson then moved that, in accordance with the re- 

 solution of the General Committee of last year at Birming- 

 ham, Sir David Brewster do take the chair. Sir David 

 Brewster having taken the chair, addressed the audience 

 nearly iil the following terms : — 



