lo Bailey, Inaugural Address. 



mule for spinning cotton, and a number of others for 

 steamships, screw propellers, life-boats and armour- 

 clads, &c. Then we had Nasmyth, the inventor of the 

 steam-hammer, a man who loved science more than 

 money, for in his middle age he retired to his garden in 

 the South of England, and studied the lamps of heaven 

 with a great telescope he designed and made at Patricroft. 

 Mention should also be made of Sir William Fairbairn 

 and Sir Joseph Whitworth. Dr. Priestley, who discovered 

 oxygen, occasionally visited us. Count Rumford, who 

 tried to discover the mechanical equivalent of heat, was 

 amongst our honorary members, as was also Dr. Darwin's 

 grandfather, the celebrated Erasmus, author of the Botanic 

 Garden, and the poet and prophet of the future of the 

 steam engine, who with exultation wrote : — 



Soon shall thy arm, Unconquer'd Steam ! afar 

 Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car ; 

 Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear 

 The flying-chariot through the fields of air. 



There is no necessity to mention at length the great 

 work of our late illustrious members Dr. Dalton and 

 Dr. Joule, whose effigies in marble are in the entrance to 

 the Manchester Town Hall. Valuable records of the 

 Society will be found in a book edited by Dr. Angus 

 Smith, in which he summarises the work of our most 

 prominent members, the title of which is, " A Century of 

 Science in Manchester." I assisted in a few paragraphs 

 about Richard Roberts, whose friendship I much valued 

 when a young man. Dr. Angus Smith says in his preface, 

 " That the Society has made Manchester a scientific centre 

 for more than a Century, and has much disposed it to 

 seek a University, and has given it a right to demand 

 one, a right that has been conceded." And he goes on to 

 say that the Society has done its work for a century 



