5G 



These prejudices are passing away ; and although there is amongst a certain 

 class of society, unacquainted with the facts of science, some popular fear lest 

 certain branches of natural history subjects should tend to scepticsm, those 

 prejudices are also disappearing as men begin to grapple with subjects that at 

 first are, of necessity, visionary and dim. It is not an easy thing to throw over- 

 board the lessons of childhood and the instructions of youth ; yet most of us, 

 when we entered upon the study of those high subjects, had to ccmfess that much 

 that we had hitherto learned was false. And in the communication of scientific 

 knowledge, and lending an impetus to the study of the natural sciences, I said I 

 believed that the formation of such societies would have a beneficial effect in 

 every county in which they were established ; and in endeavouring to advance 

 these subjects we should remember by whom we had ourselves been taught. 



The honorary members, Murchison, Sedgwick, Strickland and others, had 

 been, by their writings, beacon lights to us, and we should endeavour to make 

 them so to others ; for most of us had learned by experience that there is a 

 philosophy that is false, as well as a philosophy that is true— that there is a 

 philosophy that elevates, and another that misleads, just as well as that there is 

 a system of reasoning that perplexes and confuses, as well as a system that 

 instructs. 



I then said I conceived that much service might be rendered by our societies 

 in matters of every-day life, for there is no department of science that has not 

 some ties with the common business of life. 



I mentioned instances in which geology had been, and might be again, useful 

 in preventing absurd and useless expenditure in mining speculations, as the 

 localities most favourable for the segregation of minerals were every day becoming 

 better defined. The perusal of certain elementary works of geology might 

 convince the agents of a noble Earl, in an adjoining county, that their intention 

 of boring for coal in the Lower Lias, would be rather a remarkable proceeding in 

 these days ; they would learn that they would have not only the whole of the 

 New Red System to sink through, but sundry coal measure clays and sandstones, 

 before they came to sufficient of that mineral to pay for a box to put it in 

 (laughter and applause). 



I then mentioned how generally useful the practical chemist of our societies 

 might be, as well as the geologist and botanist, as there is not one of those sciences 

 that has not a direct practical influence on agricultural enterprise. The farmer is 

 constantly taken in by the purchase of artificial manures (hear, hear). Guano 

 had been sold which had not one particle of the genuine article in its composition ; 

 the newspapers teemed with advertisements of the nitrate of this, and the 

 phosphate of that ; and would not the Clubs be of practical service to the agricul- 

 turalist, if we could ascertain for him the chemical compounds of these nostrums, 

 and, if genuine, whether they were adapted to the soil to which they were to be 

 applied ? 



The Old Red clays of Herefordshire must require a very different chemical 

 agent to the Ryelands of the Worcestershire New Red ; and not a hundred years 



