XXXVi REPORT—1845. 
the many dangers of their enterprise, and restore them in health and honour 
to their country. 
I cannot quit this subject without reverting to and deploring the great loss 
which science has recently sustained in the death of the late Prof. Daniell, 
one of its most eminent and successful cultivators inthis country. His work 
on Meteorology is, if I mistake not, the first in which the distinction between 
the aqueous and gaseous atmospheres, and their mutual independence, was 
clearly and strongly insisted on as a highly influential element in meteorolo- 
gical theory. Every succeeding investigation has placed this in a clearer 
light. In the hands of M. Dove, and more recently of Colonel Sabine, it has 
proved the means of accounting for some of the most striking features in the 
diurnal variations of the barometer. The continual generation of the aqueous 
atmosphere at the Equator, and its destruction in high latitudes, furnishesa mo- 
tive power in meteorology, whose mode of action, and the mechanism through 
which it acts, have yet to be inquired into. Mr. Daniell’s claims to scientific 
distinction were, however, not confined to this branch. In his hands, the 
voltaic pile became an infinitely more powerful and manageable instrument 
than had ever before been thought possible; and his improvements in its 
construction (the effect not of accident, but of patient and persevering experi- 
mental inquiry), have in effect changed the face of Electro-Chemistry. Nor 
did he confine himself to these improvements. He applied them: and among 
the last and most interesting inquiries of his life, are a series of electro-che- 
mical researches which may rank with the best things yet produced in that 
line. 
The immediate importance of these subjects to one material part of our 
business at this meeting, has caused me to dwell more at length than perhaps I 
otherwise should on them. I would gladly use what time may remain without 
exciting your impatience, in taking a view of some features in the present 
state and future prospects of that branch of science to which my own attention 
has been chiefly directed, as well as to some points in the philosophy of 
science generally, in which it appears to me that a disposition is becoming 
prevalent towards lines of speculation, calculated rather to bewilder than 
enlighten, and, at all events, to deprive the pursuit of science of that which, 
toa rightly constituted mind, mustever beone of its highest and most attractive 
sources of interest, by reducing it to a mere assemblage of marrowless and 
meaningless facts and laws. 
The last year must ever be considered an epoch in astronomy, from its 
having witnessed the successful completion of the Earl of Rosse’s six-feet 
reflector—an achievement of such magnitude, both in itself as a means of 
discovery, and in respect of the difficulties to be surmounted in its construc- 
tion (difficulties which perhaps few persons here present are better able from 
experience to appreciate than myself), that I want words to express my ad- 
miration of it. I have not myself been so fortunate as to have witnessed its 
performance, but from what its noble constructor has himself informed me 
of its effects on one particular nebula, with whose appearance in powerful 
telescopes I am familiar, I am prepared for any statement which may be made 
of its optical capacity. What may be the effect of so enormous a power in 
adding to our knowledge of our own immediate neighbours in the-universe, 
it is of course impossible to conjecture ; but for my own part I cannot help 
contemplating, as one of the grand fields open for discovery with such an 
instrument, those marvellous and mysterious bodies or systems of bodies, the 
Nebule. By far the major part, probably at least nine-tenths of the nebu- 
lous contents of the heavens, consist of nebule of spherical or elliptical forms 
presenting every variety of elongation and central condensation. Of these 
a great number have been resolved into distinct stars, and a vast multitude 
= Se 
