British Association fur the Advancement of Science. 77 



sary to produce any observed phjenomenon. Thus when the ex- 

 ternal action of a spherical electrized body, in any direction, varies 

 according to an exact inverse power of the distance, higher than 

 the second, the opposite electricities will be arranged in pairs, in 

 exactly equal quantities, between the neutral lines and the lines of 

 greatest accumulation ; and the influence of an external point will 

 be as a constant quantity — the inverse cube of the distance. 



After the meeting, Prof. Airy exhibited an apparatus illustrative 

 of some of the pliaenomena referred to in his paper • and Professor 

 Henslow gave an account, illustrated by drawings and specimens, 

 of observations made on the age of trees. 



BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



We have been favoured by a correspondent, who is a member of the 

 Association, with the following notice of the meeting held at Oxford, 

 from the 18th to the 23rd of June. 



"We believe we speak the sentiments of a great majority of the in- 

 dividuals lately assembled at Oxford, when we say that this Meeting 

 has been most satisfactory in every way, — that Oxford has performed 

 her part nobly, and that the distinguished men who have been enter- 

 tained within her ancient walls will long remember, with feelings of 

 proud exultation, the week spent there. If the meeting at York was 

 productive of so many valuable results, what may not be anticipated 

 from an assembly of a much more numerous and splendid kind ? If 

 the head of Science was drooping, the Meeting at Oxford cannot 

 but revive it. Science has here been honoured in a new way,— in a 

 marked and preeminent manner; and every individual assembled at 

 Oxford must have been gratified by the distinctions conferred on 

 Brewster, Dalton, Faraday, and Brown. 



" If the scientific men, drawn from the remotest corners of the king- 

 dom, were gratified with the splendid hospitality both publicly and 

 privately displayed, — in an equal degree, we have authority for saying, 

 were the Vice- Chancellor, and the members of the University gene- 

 rally, pleased wiih the compliment paid to the University by the 

 meeting of the Association there. Oxford has shown that she is fa- 

 vourable to knowledge ; — that she is willing to bestow her honours 

 on its most successful cultivators ; — that she is bounded by no narrow 

 and contracted notions in all that regards rank and condition in life, 

 or the diversities of human belief, when the enlargement of the great 

 empire of science is concerned ;— that she has in the present instance 

 set a magnificent example to the whole empire ; — that by her splen- 

 did and refined liberality she calls upon the other Universities, upon 

 the great commercial cities, upon London itself, to tread in her bril- 

 liant steps ; that she has welcomed within her walls a body of enlight- 

 .ened men far more numerous than were ever assembled before for the 

 purposes of science in these dominions ; that these, stimulated by the 

 feelings which an Association so novel cannot fail to produce, are 

 rrlurned or returning to their habitations with hopes revived and 

 energies reawakened, — no longer solitary and detached, hut linked 



