216 Meeting of the British Association, 



MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 



Meetings op Sections. 



A— MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



President— ThQ Earl of RossE, F. R. S., &c. 



This Section met in a class-room of Marischal College, which 

 was quite crowded. His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, in 

 visiting the Sections, entered this room a few minutes after eleven. 

 His entrance was received with loud cheers, the audience rising to 

 their feet. He took his seat on the left of the President. 



Lord Rosse then said : — Ladies and Gentlemen, — It has recently 

 been usual at opening the proceedings, to give, as far as may be 

 practicable, a general outline of the business to be brought before 

 the Section, and some kind of notice of the order in which 

 it is likely to be taken. As, however, many papers usually come 

 in after the meeting of the Section, and as circumstances often 

 arise rendering it necessary to alter the order of proceeding, any 

 notice which can be given must necessarily be very imperfect. 

 The daily notice will, however, in some degree, remove the diffi- 

 culty. It has also, I believe, been usual to give some slight 

 account of the general character of the business to be transacted, 

 so that new members may be enabled better to decide whether to 

 attend this Section or some other. I have just looked over the 

 papers that have been sent in. I find that there are papers on 

 pure mathematics and on applied mathematics : papers more espe- 

 cially on light and electricity ; on magnetism, on meteorology, and 

 on the construction of mathematical instruments. Also, papers 

 in several other minor departments of physics. But, up to the 

 present time, there are some branches of science in this Section in 

 which the papers have not been given in and are yet to come. 

 However, by this account you will be enabled to form some idea 

 of the character of the business to be transacted. Now first, with 

 respect to the mathematical papers, I need perhaps hardly say that 

 essays on so abstruse a subject, can scarcely be of very much gene- 

 ral interest ; they can scarcely be of interest except to mathema- 

 ticians. And the subject of mathematics is so extensive, that even 

 they — unless the papers happen to be on branches related to those 



