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 XXXV. Proceedings of Learned Societies, 



OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH AS- 

 SOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, AT THE 

 DUBLIN MEETING, AUGUST 1835. 



Communicated by the Council and Secretaries. 



r |^HE contributions to science received at the annual meet- 

 ■*■ ings of the British Association are of two classes, — the one 

 consisting of reports and researches executed under its im- 

 mediate impulse and direction, the other of miscellaneous 

 communications, the authors of which choose this method of 

 bringing new facts or theories into notice, and of submitting 

 them to public discussion. 



Without undervaluing in any degree the latter class of con- 

 tributions, the Association deems it advisable to deal with 

 them in such a manner as to avoid any interference with the 

 Transactions of other Institutions : with this view it has dis- 

 couraged the production, at its meetings, of papers in a state 

 for publication in such Transactions ; and whilst it prints at 

 full length those reports and researches which are directly 

 its own, it has refrained from publishing the miscellaneous 

 communications in any other form than those of notices and 

 abstracts. 



At the last meeting it was determined to draw the line of 

 distinction still more completely, and at the same time to af- 

 ford a speedier opportunity of publishing views brought for- 

 ward for the sake of early notice and discussion, by transfer- 

 ring these abstracts from the annual Report of the Association 

 to the periodical journals of science ; and in consequence our 

 present Number contains the commencement of a series of 

 abstracts of the miscellaneous communications made to the 

 Meeting in Dublin, according to the order of the Sections in 

 which they were communicated. No attempt will be made 

 to give an account of the verbal discussions, and yet, inde- 

 pendent of these, the amount of the communications was 

 such as to preclude the possibility of including the whole of 

 the abstracts in a single number of this Journal. 



As in regard to the number and value of scientific contri- 

 butions, so in other respects the meeting at Dublin fulfilled 

 all the expectations which had been entertained of its success : 

 even before it assembled there its members had received such 

 unusual proofs of the esteem in which the Association was 

 held as could not but add to the spirit and animation of the 

 meeting. The tribute to science paid by an eminent mer- 

 chant of Liverpool (Sir John Tobin) in devoting one of the 

 finest steam-boats in that port to the service of its members, 



Third Series. Vol.7. No. 40. Oct. 1835. 2 P 



