ADDRESS 



PROFESSOR DAUBENY 



Gentlemen, — The practice of the three preceding Anniversaries has 

 prepared you to expect, at the first General Meeting that may be held, 

 a short address, explanatory of the nature of those scientific objects 

 which had chiefly occupied the Association on the former occasion, and, 

 in particular, of the contents of the last pubUshed Volume of Transac- 

 tions, in which the results of your labours are recorded. This it has 

 hitherto been usual for the Local Secretaries of the year to prepare; and 

 it seemed but a fair division of labour that such a task should, in the 

 present instance, be allotted to the one, on whom, from unavoidable cir- 

 cumstances, the smaller share in the other duties of the office had de- 

 volved. It was this consideration, indeed, which reconciled me to the 

 tmdertaking ; for had I not felt that the framing of this Address was the 

 only part of the functions of Secretary that could be discharged at a 

 distance from the intended place of meeting, and that the time of my 

 colleague would be engrossed by the preparatory arrangements, in which, 

 from my absence, I was unable till lately to participate, I should have 

 shrunk from the responsibility of a task which involved the consideration 

 of questions of a high and abstruse character, to several of which I feel 

 myself but ill-qualified to do justice. It is nevertheless, be assured, with 

 extreme diffidence that I enter upon a taskwhich has, at former meetings, 

 been executed by men so eminent in science, and that I presume, though 

 one of the humblest members of this great body, to exhibit to you a brief 

 sketch of the labours of some of those individuals, whose presence 

 amongst us sheds a lustre over our proceedings, and has contributed, 

 more than any other motive, to draw together this great concourse here 

 assembled. 



There is one consideration, however, that may perhaps give me some 

 claim to your indulgence : I mean that of my having attended to all the 

 meetings of this Association up to the present time, and hence having 

 traced its progress through all its various stages, from its first small be- 

 giniiings at York, up to this period of its full maturity ; thus having 



