SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN LARGE TOWNS. 99 



precepts of morality, or for unfolding the truths and hopes of reli- 

 gion." The Lecturer was Dr. De Lys. Beside him stood a little 

 o-irlj deaf and dumb from her birth, to whose instruction his friend, 

 Mr. Alexander Blair, and himself, had given considerable attention. 

 I find it recorded that " the audience at the lecture were much in- 

 terested by this little child. Her appearance, indeed, was remark- 

 ably engaging. Her countenance was full of intelligence, and all 

 her actions and attitudes in the highest degree animated and expres- 

 sive ; while the eagerness with which she watched the countenances 

 of her instructors, and the delight with which she sprang forward to 

 execute, or rather to anticipate their wishes, afforded a most affect- 

 ing spectacle." 



Strange would it have been had the audience not been deeply in- 

 terested ! For what could have been more calculated to call forth all 

 the warmest feelings of the heart and the strongest sympathies of 

 our nature ? The matter did not rest here ; the enthusiasm of the 

 town and neighbourhood was lighted up ; and there now stands an 

 Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, a lasting 

 monument of the utility of the Birmingham Philosophical Institu- 

 tion. I take my stand here, and contend that if no other instance 

 of its utility could be adduced, this one alone were sufficient to en- 

 title it to the cordial support of every well-wisher to mankind. I 

 do not mean to say that the spectacle would have been less interest- 

 ing in any other room than in this, or that the arguments would 

 have been less sound and convincing if they had been brought for- 

 ward elsewhere; but it is more than probable that the attention of 

 these benevolent and talented gentlemen had been directed to the 

 subject by their scientific researches connected with this Institution. 

 At any rate, it was made the medium of communication with the 

 public, and out of a lecture delivered to its members arose the valu- 

 able Institution to which I have alluded. 



The Birmingham Philosophical Institution has also given a spur 

 to the promotion of scientific knowledge. The statistical tables of 

 mortality and of steam-power, and the meteorological journal, con- 

 tained in the Report for 1836, are highly valuable documents. The 

 latter was kept by means of the self-registering anemometer and 

 rain-guage. This instrument, which excited so much attention at 

 the last meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, (as being something which had long been wanted, but never 

 till then supplied), was invented by Mr. Follett Osier, in conse- 

 quence of his having learnt the want of such an instrument at a 

 meeting of the members of this Institution. It has been fixed on 



