ADDRESS 



CHARLES DAUBENY, M.D., F.R.S., 



Professok of Botany in the University of Oxford. 



Gentlemen of the British Association, 



Exactly twenty years have elapsed since the time when, as one of the Local 

 Secretaries of this Institution, at the Meeting held in Bristol, it became my- 

 province to lay before the Members present a Report on the progress of 

 Physical Science, more especially with reference to the subjects that had 

 been treated of in the last volume of our Transactions. 



And it was with no assumed feeling of humility that I expressed on that 

 occasion my lively sense of the responsibility of the task imposed upon me, 

 and of my own feeble qualifications for its execution. 



It is, however, with a much more pervading consciousness of my defi- 

 ciencies that I appear at the present time, when, addressing you as the Pre- 

 sident of this great Body, I see before me similar duties committed to me to 

 discharge. 



On the former occasion, indeed, I was at least encouraged by the reflection, 

 that however eminent those who had preceded me in the drawing up of such 

 reports might have been, — and doubtless there were amongst them some of 

 our most valued associates, — still, as the task had up to that time been con- 

 fided to the Local Secretaries, it was one to which persons of humbler preten- 

 sions might aspire ; nor was the general Body likely itself to be compromised 

 by any remarks that emanated from one of its subordinate Officers. 



But I now stand before you in quite a different capacity, following as I do 

 in the wake of a long train of distinguished individuals, several of whom, 

 indeed, as was the case with my own immediate predecessor, added to the 

 recommendation of extensive scientific and literary attainments, the prestige 

 of exalted rank and eminent social position ; whilst of the remainder many 

 had been peculiarly marked out for such a post, either on the ground of 

 their own contributions to Science, or on that of the depth and range of 

 their information in some of its highest departments. 



In my own case, on the contrary, I cannot but feel, that this important 

 office has been imposed upon me, chiefly on account of my position as the 

 Senior amongst the Professors of Physical Science in a neighbouring Uni- 



