No. 6.] president's address b. a. a. s. 341 



to travel into the res>;ions of utilitarianism and of self-interest. 

 These, the high priests of science, command our utmost admira- 

 tion ; but it is not to them that we can look for our current 

 progress in practical science, much less can we look for it to 

 " the thumb "' practitioner, who is guided by what comes nearer 

 to instinct than to reason. It is to the man of science, who also 

 gives attention to practical questions, and to the practitioner, 

 who devotes part of his time to the prosecution of strictly scien- 

 tific investigations, that we owe the rapid progress of the present 

 day, both merging more and more inio one class, that of pioneers 

 in the domain of nature. It is such men that Archimedes 

 must have desired when he refused to teach his disciples the art 

 of constructing his powerful ballistic engines, exhorting them to 

 give their attention to the principles involved in their construc- 

 tion ; and that Telford, the founder of the Institution of Civil 

 Engineers, must have had iu his mind's eye, when he defined 

 civil enoineerino- as •' the art of directing; the o;reat sources of 

 nature." 



These considerations may serve to show that although we see 

 the men of both abstract and applied science group themselves 

 in minor bodies for the better prosecution of special objects, the 

 points of contact between the different branches of knowledge 

 are ever multiplying, all tending to form part of a mighty tree — 

 the tree of modern science, under whose ample shadow its culti- 

 vators will find it both profitable and pleasant to meet, at least 

 once a year ; and considering that this tree is not the growth of 

 one country only, but spreads both its roots and branches far 

 and wide, it appears desirable that at these yearly gatherings 

 other nations should be more fully represented than has hitherto 

 been the case. The subjects discussed at our meetings are 

 without exceptiou of general interest, but many of them bear an 

 international character, such as the systematic collection of mag- 

 netic, astronomical, meteorological, and geodetical observations, 

 the formation of a universal code for siii-nalino- at sea. and for 

 distinguishing lighthouses, and especially the settlement of scien- 

 tific nomenclatures and units of measurement, regardinii; all of 

 which an international accord is a matter of the utmost practical 

 importance. 



As regards the measures of length and weight it is to be 

 regretted that this country still stands aloof from the movement 

 initiated iu France towards the close of last century : but, con- 



