XXV. 

 ANXITERSAEY ADDRESS. 



By the Preskleut, J. Gwxx Jeffreys, LL.D., F.E.S., F.L.S., 



Treas. G.S., etc. 



Delivered at the Aiimial Meeting , Ibth February, 1S81, at Watford. 



Ladies and Gextlemeit, — 



Another year has come round ; and I have again the pleasure of 

 meeting and addressing you as President of this useful and pros- 

 perous Society. 



The Report of the Council, which has just been read, tells you 

 that during the past year the number of members has increased 

 from 231 to 270, and that a large amount of excellent work has 

 been done. I have no doubt but that the present and following 

 years will show an equally satisfactory rate of progress. 



The Address which I now have the honour of presenting is, like 

 my previous Address, in the form of a Lecture ; and as it is longer 

 than the last — notwithstanding the promise that I then made — I 

 will lose no more time in giving it. The title is 



DEEP-SEA EXPLORATION^. 

 This subject is one in which I have for many years taken much 

 interest; and I will give you the result of my experience and 

 studies. It is highly fascinating to all persons of ordinary intelli- 

 gence, although they may not be naturalists. Our best poets have 

 not disdained to sing its praises ; one of them says : 



' ' There is a magnet-like attraction in 

 These waters to the imaginative power 

 That links the viewless with the visible, 

 And pictures things unseen." 



Speculations of this kind were not unknown to the ancients. In 

 the ' Halieutica ' of Oppian, written nearly seventeen centuries ago, 

 it is stated that no one had found the bottom of the sea, and that 

 the greatest depth ascertained by man was 300 fathoms, where 

 Amphitrite had been seen. But this grand discovery does not seem 

 to have satisfied the poetical philosopher ; and he enters into a long 

 disquisition as to the many other wonderful things that may be 

 concealed in the recesses of the boundless ocean, adding, never- 

 theless, what I will translate from the Greek : 



" But men have little sense and strength." 



However, man has not degenerated in this kind of knowledge since 



