xlviii REPORT. — 1851. 



Vivarais. I may refer with satisfaction to Mr, Mallet's elaborate 'First 

 Report on Earthquake Phsenomena' (lately published in our annual volume), 

 — shortly to be followed, I trust, by a second ; and I may also remind my 

 hearers that the Association have supplied funds for the construction of a 

 machine for earthquake registration, of which the superintendence is entrusted 

 to the same gentleman. 



On Zoology and Animal Physiology I can scarcely venture to offer you a 

 report, beyond a reference to the three papers on Marine Zoology in our last 

 volume, — which I conceive to possess the very highest value. I cannot, 

 however, omit all notice of the last Electro-physiological investigations of 

 Signor Matteucci : investigations which seem to draw more closely the rela- 

 tions of inorganic matter with organic and animated structure than any others 

 with which I am acquainted. 



In Vegetable Physiology I must speak in a manner equally undecided. 

 But I need scarcely allude to the interest excited among botanists by the 

 return of Dr. Hooker from his botanical expedition of some years' duration 

 into Upper India and Thibet : an expedition accompanied with great personal 

 danger (for the botanist was for some time detained as captive by one of the 

 native princes), and in which, moreover, the physical geography of a large 

 and hitherto unknown region has been established. In the course of this 

 expedition, a peak 28,000 feet high was partially climbed. In European 

 Botany the inquiries into the reproduction of cryptogamous plants appear to 

 have occupied the most prominent place. I would call your attention to the 

 continuation of the Report on the Growth and Vitality of Seeds, which forms 

 part of our last volume, — and to the Report, which I trust we may soon 

 receive, on the probable effects of the destruction of Tropical forests. 



Before quitting the subject of Natural History, I am bound to allude to 

 one subject of great interest to natural philosophers in every branch. It 

 had long been matter of regret to many of the most active members of this 

 Association that the constitution of the immediate ruling body in the British 

 Museum appeared scarcely to offer to them sufficient security for the due 

 support of those natural sciences for which, in a great measure, the Museum 

 was originally founded. So strongly had this been felt, that the Council 

 were prepared to solicit the immediate attention of Government to that point. 

 I am happy now to state that, without the exercise of this interference, the 

 principal ground of alarm has been removed by the appointment of Sir Philip 

 Egerton as one of the Trustees of the British Museum. 



I must omit allusion to Geography, Ethnology and Statistics, and proceed 

 to my final subject. 



Engineering and Manufacturing Science have always commanded a great 



