PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 3 



■fli-uinage is a subject that re(iiuves for its iiivesti;,aitioi) tlie united 

 laljoui-.s of hundreds of people, wlio will patiently .i^auge their 

 wells all over the country and report the result ; without hesita- 

 tion a committee of the British Association took up the woi'k and 

 carried it on for years to a successful report. Is it desirable to 

 investigate the phenomena of shooting stars ; a committee again 

 takes up the subject, works out all the results, tells us a mass of 

 invaluable facts bearing upon their phenomena. Is it necessary 

 to form a grand star catalogue out of all the labours that have 

 gone before ; the Association at once appoints a committee 

 and grants the money for the publication of their invaluable 

 catalogue. Is the theory of ship-building in a state of chaos ; a 

 committee of scientific and practical men collects the results of 

 experience, reduces them to order, to the improvement of ship- 

 building. And so on. Hundreds of subjects, scientific and 

 practical, have been thoroughly investigated, and the information 

 brought up to date by the voluntary labours of the members who. 

 have made the British Association true to its chai'ter. It has 

 advanced the sciences all round — mathematical, chemical, physical, 

 mechanical, physiological, and botanical. It found thousands of 

 fellow-workers in science separated by distance and different 

 associations, and it abolished distance by itself going about the 

 country, and made a common ground upon which all could meet 

 and work for the promotion of their common object without losing 

 their individuality as woi'kers in their own sphei'e. It brought 

 as it were to a focus the science of England ; made it possible to 

 see at glance what had been done ; opened up the vista of a grand 

 scientific pi'ogress, and marshalled the men who were to move 

 forward ; the best men in each subject were called to work side 

 by side with their equals or betters, and necessarily when each 

 subject came to be treated in this special way, there was a great 

 advance ; but it is not a thing of the past, it is a living principle 

 of to-day. Last year the meeting at Manchester included 5000 

 members. Not all workers it is true, but all learners, and the 

 most humble contributing something towards the publication of 

 the labours of those who are leaders in the van of workers. Its 

 influence has come across the ocean, and brought us here to-night, 

 and we hope before the end of this week we shall have a number 

 of preliminary reports upon scientific labours in these colonies in 

 the past. At the very time that Sir David Brewster was using 

 his pen and his influence to stii- up the scientific men of England 

 to greater effort in the cause of science, and to the formation of 

 the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the 

 British Government were sending to Sydney one of the most 

 energetic scientific men that ever sat foot upon Au.stralian soil, 

 (James Dunlop, the Astronomer), with a view of keeping alive 

 the dying embers of the first attempt to plant science in this 

 part of the world. And I think it most fitting that, at this 



