INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 9 



tiuued on through time, but with such individual varia- 

 tions as give rise to derivative groups, just as we find 

 has been the case in the field of organic creations. The 

 idea embodied in this speculation likens the molecule 

 to the vortex-rings which Helmholtz found must continue 

 to exist for ever if in a jjerfect fluid and free from all 

 friction they are once generated, as a result of impacting 

 motion. There is something very attractive in the simpli- 

 city of this theory of the constitution of matter, which has 

 been advocated by Sir William Thomson. He illustrates 

 it by likening the form of atoms to smoke-rings in the 

 atmosphere, which, if they could be formed under circum- 

 stances such as above described, must continue to move 

 without changing form, distinguished only from the sur- 

 rounding medium by their motion. As long as the 

 original conditions of the liquid exist they must continue 

 to revolve. Nothing can separate, divide, or destroy them, 

 and no new units can be formed in the liquid v/ithout a 

 fresh application of creative impact. 



The doctrine of the conservation of energy is a second 

 powerful instrument of research that has developed within 

 our own times. How it has cleared away all the old cob- 

 webs that formerly encrusted our ideas about the simplest 

 agencies which are at work around us, how it has so 

 simplified the teaching of the laws that order the con- 

 version of internal motions of bodies into various phases 

 which represent light, heat, electricity, is abundantly 

 proved by the facility with which mechanicians are every 

 day snatching the protean forziis of energy for the service 

 of man with increasing economy. 



These great strides which have been made in physical 

 science have not as yet incited much original work in this 

 colony. But, now that physical laboratories are established 

 in some degree at the various college centres, we shall be 

 expected, ere long, to contribute our mite to the vast store. 

 In practical works of physical research we miss in New 

 Zealand the stimulus the sister colonies receive from their 

 first-class observatories, supplied with all the most modern 

 instruments of research wielded by such distinguished as- 



