618 Meeting of the British Association. [Oct., 



not endeavour to obtain any monopoly, and should speak in unmis- 

 takable language to prevent the distnist of any other power. 

 Sir Stafford Northcote deprecated the idea that our duties to com- 

 merce and civiUzation should be regarded in the nature of rivahy 

 •with Russia. We must consider the question as bearing on the 

 interests of the great masses of people committed to our charge 

 in India, and consider also that whatever is for the advantage of 

 India must be for the advantage of adjacent peoples. We must be 

 careful not to engage in any enterprises likely to bring us into 

 collision with the frontier tribes, and must not put our arm out 

 farther than we could draw it back again. ' Sir Stafford declared it 

 to be for our interest, as far as possible, to sm-round our empire 

 in India with independent, flourishing States, which would feel it 

 to be their interest to be on good relations with us, and that their 

 prosperity was bound up with ours. 



A " Scheme for a Scientific Exploration of Australia," by Dr. G. 

 Neumayer ; a paper by Mr. W. P. Blanford " On Northern Abys- 

 sinia ; " and one " On Ealeigh's El Dorado," by Dr. C. Le Neve 

 Foster, concluded a by no means uiiimj)ortant or uninteresting, if 

 not a brilhant, meeting. 



Mechanical Science. (Section G.) 



This Section met in St. John's Hospital, under the Presidency 

 of Mr. C. W. Siemens, C.E., F.E.S., by whom a very excellent 

 and instructive opening address was delivered. Including the 

 Presidential address, the reports from committees, and papers from 

 members, there were altogether twenty-five commimications made 

 to the Section, if we likewise include four papers W'hich were taken 

 as read at the last sitting of the Section. As Saturday was set apart 

 for the excursion to Plymouth and Devonport, and as the subject 

 of the Patent Laws naturally attracted the engineers to the Statis- 

 tical Section on the ensuing Wednesday, the last day of the Exeter 

 meeting, Section G had only four sittings — on Thursday, Friday, 

 Monday, and Tuesday. 



The President's address embraced some remarks on the somewhat 

 hackneyed subject of technical education, and specially commended 

 Mr. John Scott Eussell's lately published volume treating on this 

 subject. Almost as a matter of course, Mr. Siemens dwelt at some 

 length on the system of Letters Patent, on which he can certainly 

 speak as " one having authority." He put the question of the 

 theoiy and practice of Letters Patent in a very clear light by the 

 following brief statement. " According to modern views," he said, 

 " a patent is a contract between the Commonwealth and an indi- 

 vidual who has discovered a method, peculiar to himself, of accom- 



