ADDRESS. IXXV 



would have been enough to constitute an important epoch. Its systematic 

 operations may be said to be still only in the first stages of their progress ; 

 yet already how often do we see reference had to the mysterious revelations it 

 has made in discussions on the principles of that science, and in not a few of the 

 speculations to which they are giving birth ! My distinguished friend Sir D. 

 Brewster, in his recent Life of Newton, has designated that telescope as "one 

 of the most wonderful combinations of art and science which the world has 

 yet seen." All who are interested in the devotion of abilities, of means and 

 of leisure to the noblest pursuits, must earnestly wish to see Lord Rosse 

 rewarded by that which he will value most, the steady progress of discovery. 

 It'must always be remembered, however, that Astronomy is a science of which 

 hitherto at least it might almost be said that one great genius had left us no 

 more worlds to conquer ; that is to say, he carried our knowledge at a bound 

 to one grand, and apparently universal law, to which all worlds were subject, 

 and of which every new discovery had been but an additional illustration. 

 The reign of that law, whether universal or not, was at least so wide, that we 

 had never pierced beyond the boundary of its vast domain. For the first time 

 since the days of Newton a suspicion has arisen in the minds of astronomers 

 that we have passed into the reign of other laws, and that the nebular phseno- 

 mena revealed to us by Lord Rosse's telescope must be governed by forces 

 different from those of which we have any knowledge. Whether this opinion 

 be or be not well founded — whether it be or be not probable that our 

 limited command over time and space can ever yield to our research 

 any other law of interest or importance comparable with that which has 

 already been determined — still, inside that vast horizon there are fillings-in 

 and filiings-up which will ever furnish infinite reward to labour. Of these 

 not a few have been secured since our last meeting here. Besides the patient 

 work of our professed Astronomers, and the good service rendered by such 

 men as Mr. Lassell and Mr. Nasniyth, who have so well relieved the business 

 of commercial industry by their devotion to the pursuits of science, we have 

 had one event so remarkable that in the whole history of Astronomy it stands 

 alone. If in looking at the wonderful objects revealed to us in Lord Rosse's 

 telescope, we turn instinctively sometimes from the thing shown to the thing 

 which shows — from the Spiral Nebulae to the knowledge and resources which 

 have collected their feeble light, and brought their mysterious forms under 

 the cognizance of the human eye, how much more curiously do we turn 

 from the single planet Neptune, to that other instrument which has felt, as it 

 were, and found its obscure and distant orbit I So long as our species remains, 

 that body will be associated with one of the most glorious proofs ever given 

 of the reach of the human intellect ; — of the sweep and certainty of that noble 

 science which now honours with enduring memory the twin names of Adams 

 and Leverrier. 



In Geology, the youngest, but not the least vigorous of the sciences, every 

 year has been adding to the breadth of its foundation — to the depth and 

 meaning of its results. Probably no science has ever advanced with more 

 rapid steps. In 1840 the then recent publication of the " Silurian System " 

 had just established those landmarks of the Palaeozoic world which all subse- 

 quent discovery has only tended to confirm. The great horizons which were 

 first defined by the labours of Murchison and Sedgwick have since disclosed 

 the same phenomena which they so accurately described, in every quarter 

 of the globe ; and the generalizations founded thereupon have been definitely 

 established. The same period has sufficed, partly by the labours of the 

 same distinguished men, to clear up the relative position of the strata which 

 represent the closing epochs of ancient life, and those which form the base of the 



