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covery and scientific research been undertaken ; by no nation 

 so prominently as by our own. More recently still, has 

 our Government, influenced by the representations of the 

 Council of the British Association, contributed to the erection 

 and support of magnetic observatories, in distant and remote 

 quarters of the globe. Would such a result have been 

 brought about, but for the influence of the British Association ? 

 Twenty years have not yet elapsed since the school of Naval 

 Architecture was suppressed in this great maritime country, 

 and the building of our ships of war placed under the control 

 of men who were profesedly ignorant of science, but good 

 practical seamen, — and this was done by the Admiralty 

 of the day, avowedly on the ground that he who could best 

 manoeuvre a sbip, was the fittest to build a ship. Much on 

 the same principle, as if the mate of a vessel, who happened 

 to be familiar with the modes of taking lunars, should be set 

 to calculate the tables of the Nautical Almanack, or as 

 if an experienced whip were placed at the head of a coach 

 factory. 



" Having thus vindicated, at some length, such Associa- 

 tions and such Societies from the cavils of unfriendly and 

 uncandid objectors, let me now briefly consider the position 

 which our Society holds, the only one, I believe, in this town 

 for the promotion of literature and science. And it may not, 

 at the same time, be out of place to inquire into the state of 

 science itself, and the kindred arts which depend upon it, in 

 Liverpool ; how they are fostered, bow they are cultivated, 

 and how they are promoted, in this proverbially wealthy 'com- 

 munity ? Gentlemen, the appellation ' Merchant Princes,' 

 is one which has been often applied to the magnates of com- 

 merce in this great emporium of trade — oue not heard with 

 unwilling ears, and which the classic researches of one of 

 the founders and patrons of this society have rendered 

 familiar — who was himself inspired with the genius, the 



