ADDRESS 



LORD FRANCIS EGERTON. 



Gentlemen, — Some twelve years have now elapsed, since, by the exertions of 

 individuals, most of whom are now present, the prototype of this meeting was 

 held in the city of York ; and so successful was that first experiment, that it 

 has been annually repeated. The order and course of the proceedings of the 

 body there constituted and arranged, has not, I apprehend, been strictly 

 uniform, but I believe, on the whole, it has been usual, that on the occasion 

 of its annual assemblage, those proceedings should be open to some observa- 

 tions incidental to the occasion, on the part of the President ; and this pre- 

 liminary duty I am anxious, to the utmost of the very limited means of my 

 ability, to execute. In the earlier meetings of this Society, and on occasions 

 when the office I now hold has been filled by men distinguished by scientific 

 acquirement, it was, I believe, found possible and convenient for such Pre- 

 sidents to include in a preliminary discourse, a compressed but instructive 

 statement of past proceedings and present objects. The punctual and com- 

 plete observance of such a practice, indeed, could not be consistent with 

 those arrangements which admit to the occasional honour of your Presidency, 

 individuals, selected, like myself, not for any scientific pretensions, but from 

 the accidents of local connexion with the place, rather than the objects of 

 the assemblage. I apprehend that other reasons of equal urgency exist, 

 calculated to make this custom one of partial observance. The operations 

 of this Society have grown with its growth, and expanded with its strength ; 

 and I am happy to believe that it would be difficult for the most able and 

 instructed of those with whose knowledge I am proud, for the moment, to 

 find my own ignorance associated, now to compress into reasonable limits, 

 and to reduce to terms adapted to a mixed audience, a satisfactory summary 

 of scientific proceedings, past and contemplated, connected with the labours of 

 this Society. If, indeed, I look to the proceedings of the last year's meeting 

 at Plymouth, I find some warrant for this supposition. You met last year, 

 indeed, under different auspices. I cannot forget — I wish for the moment 

 you could — how your Chair was then filled and its duties discharged. Could 

 you forget the fact, it were hardly to my interest to awaken your recollec- 

 tion to it, that such a man as Professor Whewell filled last year at Plymouth, 

 an office which I now hold at Manchester. I do so for the purpose of re- 

 marking that he, more able, perhaps, than any man living in this country to 

 give you a concise and brilliant summary of all that he and his fellow- 

 labourers are doing, forbore in his discretion from that endeavour. If he, 

 then, who is known in matters of science to have run 



" Through each mode of the lyre, and be master of all," 



abstained from that undertaking, I may now be excused, not for my own 



