4>56 Reviews, and Notices respecting New Booh. 



that they are strikingly applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the history 

 of the British Association and the continental meetings which were 

 its precursors, and which, in fact, suggested its establishment. The 

 remarks we have quoted have resulted from comparing the small 



f>rogress which has been made in this country in systematic minera- 

 ogy, with its steady advancement on the Continent ; while, on the 

 other hand, the exertions of our countrymen in mineralogical 

 observation, — in the examination of details, — have far surpassed 

 those of our foreign brethren in science. That those remarks are 

 equally applicable to other departments of science, the present 

 volume bears ample testimony; and we conceive also, that they may 

 be applied with equal truth to the comparative progress of improve- 

 ment in every branch of human affairs, in this country and on the 

 Continent ; and in particular, as we have observed, to the history of 

 the British Association. The first example of a national periodical 

 assembly of the cultivators of science, in order to promote its ad- 

 vancement, was shown by the philosophers of Germany. The 

 meetings successively holden at Berlin, Hamburg, Heidelberg, and 

 Vienna, clearly indicated the advantages which would accrue to 

 the pursuit of natural knowledge universally, by the adoption of 

 similar measures in this country. The British Association was ac- 

 cordingly established, and we have in this volume the results of its 

 first year's existence. As in so many other instances, the example 

 has been set and the commencement has been made by foreigners, 

 but our own countrymen in adopting the plan, have greatly im- 

 proved it, and have, almost at once, made it eminently effectual in 

 the promotion of science. That the continental associations have 

 proved, in themselves, highly advantageous to the interests of sci- 

 ence, we are happy to testify; but we believe that the benefits which 

 have as yet accrued from them are, take them altogether — except 

 indeed the establishment of the British Association — greatly inferior 

 to those which will arise from the production of the Reports now 

 before us. We believe that such a volume as the present has not 

 emanated from any of the meetings on the Continent, and that no 

 contribution to the welfare of the pursuits of science, which has 

 originated in a direct manner from them, has equalled it in im- 

 portance. While the philosophers of Britain have been assiduously 

 engaged in the prosecution of the details of science, they have cer- 

 tainly, until within these very few years, shown great apathy or 

 contempt with respect to combined exertion and the methods of 

 promoting the investigation of nature; but the efforts of which the 

 results are before us, have in consequence assumed " a more posi- 

 tive character and a more original tone" than they would otherwise 

 have possessed, or than those which have been made by our scientific 

 brethren abroad. 



This work commences with a reprint of the First Report of the 

 Association for 1831, from which we gave ample extracts in the Phil. 

 Mag. and Annals, N.S. vol. xi. p. 225 : this is succeeded by the Se- 

 cond Report, for 1832, occupying no fewer than 533 pages, and 

 consisting, for the most part, of Reports on the progress and 



