surrounded nearly on all sides by lofty hills, whicli must have 

 some effect upon the circulation of the air and the state of 

 the atmosphere, in a sanatory point of view. It would take 

 me too much away from the immediate purpose of this address 

 to go into details on this subject :— I will simply remark that 

 very erroneous notions are entertained respecting the climate 

 of Bath, persons often imagining that because it is milder 

 than many other places in winter, it must necessarily be very 

 hot in summer, attributing its relaxing character at that time 

 to a higher temperature than it really possesses— instead of to 

 other causes, which, in my opinion, exercise a more decided 

 influence that way. r • ■ 



I have thus touched upon the principal matters of inquiry 

 which I think might fairly come under the consideration of 

 this Club. I proceed now to speak of the second object these 

 Clubs have in view, viz., the bringing together men of the 

 same pursuits. I presume it will be generally allowed that 

 men's minds profit much by a mutual interchange of ideas on 

 subjects they study in common. Each learns something from 

 the others, or has his mistakes corrected, while he imparts 

 something to them in return. Advantage arises even out of 

 the collision of opposite opinions which sometimes takes 

 place on the comparison of their respective views. Truth is 

 never so surely elicited as when those who have long held by 

 opinions, which in their own estimation rest upon a firm basis 

 of facts, are compelled to reinvestigate questions, and to judge 

 by the light thrown on them by others. But it is especially 

 to students of science that this intercourse with others is so 

 valuable. When working alone, we know how apt they are to 

 flag at times from the want of fellow-workers to encourage 

 them in their researches ;— or if, from an ardent love of the 

 pursuits they have taken up, they need no such stimulus to 

 keep them to the mark, they yet fall short of what they might 

 accomplish, if they had others at hand to direct or assist them 

 in any particular inquiry. These Clubs (and the remark 

 apphes equally to Natural History Societies, and all gatherings 

 for scientific purposes) have sometimes been the means of 

 briuf^ing men into notice, who might otherwise have remained all 

 their life in obscurity, unknown perhaps even to some following 

 up the same pursuits in the same neighbourhood. This is one 

 of the good results that has arisen out of the yearly meetings 

 of the British Association. Almost in every town in which 

 that body has met for the first time, men, whose names were 

 before quite unknown in the ranks of science, have come for- 

 ward on the occasion of the meeting being held in their native 

 place, — have attached themselves to the section that dealt with 

 the particular subjects they studied, and gained for themselves 



