THE 



CANADIAN NATURALIST, 



SECOND SERIES. 



MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 

 president's address : by john Phillips, m.a., ll.d., f.r.s.* 



Professor Phillips having taken the chair, was received with 

 loud applause. He said — 



Assembled for the third time in this busy centre of industrious 

 England, amid the roar of engines and the clang of hammers, 

 where the strongest powers of nature are trained to work in the 

 fairy chains of art, how softly falls upon the ear the accent of 

 science, the friend of that art, and the guide of that industry ! 

 Here, where Priestley analysed the air, and Watt obtained the 

 mastery over steam, it well becomes the students of nature to 

 gather round the standard which they carried so far into the fields 

 of knowledge. And when, on other occasions, we meet in quiet 

 colleges and academic halls, how gladly welcome is the union of 

 fresh discoveries and new inventions with the solid and venerable 

 truths which are there treasured and taught. Long may such 

 union last ; the fair alliance of cultivated thought and practical 

 skill ; for by it labor is dignified and science fertilised, and the 

 condition of human society exalted ! 



Through this happy union of science and art, the young life of 

 the British Association — one-third of a century — has been illus- 

 trated by discoveries and enriched by useful inventions in a degree 

 never surpassed. How else could we have gained that knowledge 



* Delivered in the Town Hall, Birmingham, September 6, 1865. 

 Vol. II. v No. 5. 



