xxxvi REPORT — 1842. 



I would ask leave, before I conclude, to further illustrate these views and 

 feelings which are incidental to my own position, by reference to a scientific 

 transaction of no very distant date. Some two years ago, as I have under- 

 stood, an adventurous and scientific party, with Prof. Agassiz at its head, un- 

 dertook the ascent of that Swiss mountain, whose name indicates that it had 

 for ages been pronounced inaccessible to the foot of man. They applied, 

 however, to physical difficulties in this case the energies and perseverance 

 which have won them many triumphs over intellectual obstacles, and they 

 succeeded. I doubt not that there were many who, from the chalet and the 

 pasturage beneath, directed their glasses to those peaks of ice, and watched 

 with intent and thrilling interest the progress of those adventurers. Perhaps 

 among them were some who, by some trifling incursions into those awful re- 

 gions, in pursuit perhaps of the artist's or the hunter's pastime, had learned 

 to appreciate the dangers of the crevice, the toil of the ascent, cut step by step 

 with the hatchet in the precipitous ice, and the general magnitude of the en- 

 terprise. Be assured, you climbers of the heights of science, and there are 

 many of you here, that individuals so situated hail the progress they cannot 

 share, — that they sympathize with your advance, lament when you are baffled; 

 and that when you plant your flag on some hitherto virgin summit, their 

 shout of applause would reach you from below, — if it could be conveyed to 

 your organs by the pure and attenuated atmosphere it is yours, and yours 

 alone, to breathe. Dwellers in the peopled valley as we are, absorbed by 

 other cares, and I hope discharging other duties, breathers of a heavier and 

 too often tainted atmosphere, we yet can look upwards. We watch and 

 count your triumphs ; and as you gain them, w r e gladly add your names to the 

 list of those who have done honour to their country and service to their kind. 

 For your labours have this privilege, that while their results become the com- 

 mon property of man, for that very reason, and because they confer that com- 

 mon benefit, they elevate the country in which they originate in the scale of 

 nations, and gratify the most reasonable feelings of national pride, while they 

 fulfil to the most unrestricted extent the obligations of our common hu- 

 manity. 



