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and addresses, which while replete with the deepest truths of 
science, were still brought within the comprehension of the 
merest tyro. Nor have all our members shown that zeal in. 
the prosecution of science which we might fairly have ex- 
pected, for the prizes offered for the best collections in 
Botany, Geology, and Zoology, have not been even competed 
for. All this will, I hope, be gradually altered, for in the 
pursuit of studies such as ours I can hardly conceive that any 
one who has ever put his hand to the plough can ever draw 
back. What can possibly be more ennobling than the humble 
pursuit of Natural History studies? Does it not engender 
truth, candour, patience, humility, patience, sagacity, and last 
but not least, freedom from prejudice and partizanship } ? Itisa 
contest in which all must win. 
‘¢ Who strives, he wins, and gathers might, 
For other future sterner fight.” 
I was in hopes 1 might have told you something to night 
of the result of the Eclipse Expedition, the preparations for, 
and objects of which were so graphically described in Mr. 
Acland’s admirable lecture; no authentic account has, however, 
yet been published, and one can only glean a few particulars 
from the newspaper reports. You remember, one of the 
chief objects of the expedition was to determine the true 
nature of the corona,—the white bright halo seen beyond 
the dark body of the eclipsing moon; whether it was an 
effect produced by our atmosphere, whether it was a solar 
atmosphere, or whether it belonged to the moon. The 
weather was so cloudy, however, in Africa, Spain, and Sicily, 
that all the elaborate preparations and expensive and delicate 
instruments were well nigh proving useless, In one or two 
of the more fortunate stations they were able satisfactorily 
to determine that the corona was radially polarised, and 
was, therefore, really a solar appendage. The strangest point 
is its spectrum, which gives bright green lines, indicating 
_the presence of some new and totally unknown substance. 
What is this unknown element? Shall we ever know? We 
know it is neither hydrogen, iron, calcium, sodium, or any 
element we know. Can it possibly be that we have obtained 
a first glimpse of the cosmical ether, which fills all space, and 
in which all planets, suns, and stars float. The only spectrum 
