ADDRESS BY IMIOFBSSOR DAUBiiXV. XXXIU 



Sub-committee to embody in the report which was communicated, by 

 them last year to the Medical Section. 



Such are the principal contents of the volume which records the 

 scientific labours instituted at the express suggestion of the general 

 body, and prepared for its last Meeting ; but, exclusively of these, 

 many very valuable and elaborate investigations were submitted to the 

 several Sections without any such solicitation. 



I may instance in particular the views with respect to the classifica- 

 tion and the geological distribution of Fishes, expounded to us with so 

 much ability by Mons. Agassiz, whose important labours might perhaps 

 have been suspended, but for the timely assistance dealt out to him by 

 this body, and the opportunities which its Meetings afforded, for giving 

 them that publicity which they deserved. 



I may point out likewise the important results submitted to the Geo- 

 logical Section by Mr. Murchison and Professor Sedgwick, with refer- 

 ence to the Silurian formations of Wales and Shropshire, and the mul- 

 titude of facts illustrative of the physical structure of Ireland, which 

 were elicited by the exhibition of Mr. Griffith's Geological Map, an 

 undertaking which, coupled with the researches of Mr. Mackay on the 

 plants indigenous to that country, promises to render us as well ac- 

 quainted with the Natural History of this portion of the Empire, as we 

 already are with respect to Great Britain itself. 



Nor must I forget the researches on Comparative Anatomy laid be- 

 fore the Medical Section by Dr. Houston, who pointed out the existence 

 of reservoirs connected with the veins leading to the lungs in the Ce- 

 tacea — an admirable contrivance, by which Nature has provided for the 

 unobstructed circulation of their blood, in spite of the enormous pressure 

 which they have to sustain at the great depths to which they are wont 

 to dive. 



The Members of the Association had also the satisfaction of witness- 

 ing the ingenious manner in which Mr. Snow Harris contrives to render 

 quantities of Electricity appreciable by the balance, like those of any 

 gross material substance ; whilst such as could enter upon the more re- 

 fined branches of mathematical analysis must have listened with pro- 

 found interest to the exposition given by Professor Hamilton, of the 

 ingenious labours of Mr. Jerrard, of this city, in solving Equations of 

 the higher orders. 



What proportion of such inquiries may be attributable to the influ- 

 ence of this Association, and how much might have been merely the 

 VOL. V. — 1836. c 



