1864. | The President's Address. 735 
But while the mecting at the beautiful city of Bath will long be 
remembered as a successful and agreeable one, an unhappy reminis- 
cence must inevitably be associated with it in the melancholy death of 
Captain Speke, the celebrated African traveller, who met with a fatal 
accident when shooting in the neighbourhood on the second day of the 
meeting. As one who had attended the Geographical Section on that 
very day, and who was to be the hero of a stirring discussion on the 
following morning, the fatal event caused a sensation in the assembled 
meeting more easily conceived than described, and necessarily threw a 
gloom over what in every other respect was a successful and agreeable 
gathering. 
The announcement that the next meeting of the Association, in 
1865, will be held at Birmingham, and that Professor Phillips, who, 
as Sir R. Murchison stated, has been the labouring oar of the Associa- 
tion, is to be its President, will be hailed by the scientific world with 
satisfaction. 
In the following short articles we have endeavoured to place before 
our readers a few of the leading novelties in science which were brought 
before the various Sections, and our apology for the imperfection of 
the record must be the brief space of time at our disposal, little more 
than a week having intervened between the close of the Association 
meetings and the issue of this Journal. One of the most important 
papers, however, recounting the experiments of Mr. William Fairbairn 
upon the physical properties of submarine cables, will be found amongst 
our Original Articles, contributed by the author in all its details, and 
we shall endeavour in our next to atone for our shortcomings in the 
present number. 
Tue Presipent’s ADDRESS. 
Wira the modesty which characterizes all truly great men, and which 
distinguishes, par excellence, the President of the British Association, 
that gentleman confined himself in his Inaugural Address entirely to 
the branch of science in which he is one of the leading authorities, 
and in so far he has placed at a manifest disadvantage those of his 
predecessors (perhaps we are correct in saying all) who ventured to 
lay before the Association a survey of the progress made in every field 
of science during the year preceding their installation. 
But however gratifying and interesting this new feature may have 
been to geologists, it is questionable whether it has met with universal 
approval, and whether it will not by some be regarded with satisfaction 
rather as an agreeable deviation from an acknowledged custom, than 
as a precedent to be followed by future presidents. 
T'o many of his hearers, and more especially to his readers, it must 
have been a source of disappointment not to be favoured with the 
general survey, which is looked for by the scientific and semi-scientific 
public. To the Zoologist, for example, it must have been tantalizing 
to be conducted to the outer courts of his amphitheatre, and instead of 
being permitted to enter, to be left standing on the eee whilst 
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