Siren 
ADDRESS. XXXV 
represented the Government as well as the deep learning of his country—a 
gentleman who, having commenced his literary career by aiding a Niebuhr, 
and having since brought before the world a laborious work on the mighty 
sovereigns of ancient Egypt, has now come among us with a valuable essay 
on the general philosophy of language. I will not occupy your time by 
further allusion to these ethnological communications,—but I think it pro- 
per, in addressing you from the chair, to add a word of caution. It is one 
of the most important and essential rules of the British Association that party 
politics and polemics be entirely excluded from our proceedings. It is, how- 
ever, vain to deny, unless their authors are put on their guard, that there is 
danger that these forbidden topics may steal into ethnological papers. There 
is also anther danger, namely, that they may become too historical or too 
literary. Against similar risks my predecessors have felt themselves called 
on to warn the Statistical Section, and I hope I may be excused for follow- 
ing their example, when there is a similar danger. 
It must be very gratifying to geologists to see a mathematician so eminent 
as Mr. Hopkins apply a mind accustomed to the severest studies to the most 
important and difficult subjects of geology,—as we have seen in his report 
and his papers on the theories of earthquakes. The question itself is one of 
the greatest difficulty,—one that has exercised the talents and divided the 
opinions of the ablest philosophers,—one that requires for its solution the 
aid of many sciences. It is therefore one particularly fitted to be presented 
to a meeting like this where men of every science are present. In itself, 
this may be considered as giving a direct and sufficient answer to those who 
ask what is the use of the British Association. | 
At our meeting at Southampton, Sir John Herschel, in words of singular 
poetic beauty, first intimated, as I believe, to an English audience, the re- 
markable astronomical discovery which so soon after was announced to the 
whole world, and which added an unknown planet to our system. I had the 
honour, as President of the Royal Society, to give to M. Leverrier the medal 
awarded to him by our Council,—my predecessor in the chair had the satis- 
faction of receiving at Oxford both Leverrier and Adams—the two gentlemen 
who had simultaneously, though without concert, pursued the same original 
and laborious investigation in search of the great celestial globe that dis- 
turbed the course of Uranus. Of the two discoverers of Neptune, I fear that 
I cannot hope to see here the illustrious countryman of Laplace; Mr. Adams 
. perhaps may honour Swansea with a visit. Certain I am that you, Gentle- 
‘men, would delight to welcome the two philosophers whose names will now 
% shine together like a twin star so long as astronomy shall be considered the 
 sublimest of sciences. 
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