ADDRESS 



BT 



GEORGE BIDDELL AIRY, 



M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S., &c., Astronomer Royal. 



Gentlemen of the British Association, — I cannot take the Chair 

 at this meeting, even after the cordial invitation of your General Com- 

 mittee, without a painful feeling, not only of the general responsibilities of 

 the position, but also of the difficulties which are peculiar to myself. En- 

 gaged officially in a science the pursuit of which leaves little leisure for the 

 employment of time and little freedom for the range of thought, I follow 

 a philosopher whose investigations have been dispersed through almost 

 every branch of physical science. My own attendance at the meetings of 

 the Association has been limited, and my acquaintance with its forms of 

 proceedings small : and I feel the disadvantage of succeeding in this Chair 

 one who may justly be regarded as the Founder of the Association. Still, 

 I have judged it incumbent on me to accede to the honourable invitation 

 which was pressed upon me ; and to endeavour, by attention to the busi- 

 ness of the meeting, to render such services to the Association as it may 

 be in my power to offer, and such as may in some degree compensate for the 

 partial disabilities to which I have alluded. We meet, not as a body of ac- 

 complished philosophers, but as a number of individuals, each of us anxious 

 for the advance of science, each of us sensible that he cannot urge every part 

 of it by his own personal contributions, but each of us desirous of assisting 

 it in any direction in which his knowledge or his talents, whether scientific 

 or administrative, enable him to give efficient aid. Permit me, on this occa- 

 sion, to meet you on the same terms ; and let me offer you my assurance that, 



1851. d 



