ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR TRAILL. XXVil 
gress of science which the Association has confided to some of its 
members, especially selected for that important duty. 
The advantages thus conferred on general science will be best ap- 
preciated by persons whose studies are directed to any of the subjects 
discussed in the Reports, and who have once felt the want of an ac- 
curate analysis of what had been recently added to our previous stock 
of knowledge; but it would be impossible to calculate in how many 
instances those abstracts of precise and useful information have saved 
the time, and abridged the labour, of the retired student, in tracks al- 
ready explored by other philosophers. Another peculiarity in the 
publications of the Association consists in the circulation of desiderata 
in different branches of science. The attention of their cultivators, 
thus drawn to the principal deficiencies in each, has already filled up 
various chasms in the paths of intellectual exertion, and stimulated to 
inquiries that cannot fail to lead to important results. 
It soon became apparent that the British Association must exercise 
a powerful influence on the general diffusion of science, and could 
undertake, or materially promote, investigations to which individual 
research and unaided exertion are utterly inadequate. Its annual 
_ migrations, and the comparative ease of admission into its ranks, have 
unquestionably increased the taste for scientific disquisition; and, 
although it would be absurd to suppose that all who seek for enrol- 
ment in the Association are destined to extend the boundaries of 
science, who can believe that familiarizing large masses of the com- 
munity with such investivations, and exhibiting how the highest 
branches of philosophy may be made available to the purposes of life, 
will fail to promote the avowed purpose of our meetings? Who will 
venture to deny, that the contemplation of the galaxy of illustrious 
men, mustered on occasions similar to the present, has often proved 
_ the first impulse to the secret aspirant after honourable distinction— 
has afforded the Promethean spark, that kindled the sacred flame in 
_ the breast of slumbering genius ? 
__ The Association has not failed to use its influence in stimulating 
_ our rulers to aid the progress of science. At its instigation, the 
British government has taken up the task of the reduction of the 
enormous mass of observations on the heavenly bodies, accumulated 
since 1750 at the Greenwich Observatory—which, though col- 
lected at a great expense to the nation, and by the exertion of con- 
_ summate skill in the observers—which, though pronounced by the 
highest authorities in Europe to be of the utmost moment to the 
| future progress of astronomy, —have been permitted to remain a rich, 
