PKKSI dent's ADDHESS. 11 



committees, who must work up .-ill those sul)jects which the iiuli- 

 \idual cannot manage. One of our first duties will be to work 

 up all the facts known in every branch of Australasian science, 

 if you will allow me to use the tenn. I mean all those branches 

 of science which are more immediately connected with the 

 material advancement of the colonies. This I hope will not take 

 long, and then we shall be in a position to advance in these sulj- 

 jects. Every worker knows how necessary it is to have all facts 

 in clear and orderly arrangement, as a preliminary and necessaiy 

 step to any safe advance. It may seem to some that I am asking 

 too much — that we are all hard-worked men, and but few in 

 numbers, and have no time for such work — but exactly the same 

 may be, and has been said, of the men who are the workers in 

 the British Association, yet they are not the men of leisure, but 

 the busy men of science, who do the woi'k, and it is very instruc- 

 tive to watch how they respond to the call of the association ; it 

 comes like a call to arms that must be responded to, and is 

 I'esponded to often at great personal sacrifice, and with no other 

 motive than loyalty to the cause they serve. But the parent 

 Association has just the same power over hardworked professional 

 and business men ; in thousands of cases it has taken from such a 

 man a week of ill-spared time during which he attended the 

 meetings, and by so doing has succeeded in setting him to work for 

 a year, thinking how he can advance the cause of science. As like 

 produces like, so these meetings of workers make many new 

 workers ; and as we read down the list of names of those who 

 have been draw-n into the great army of workers we find the name 

 of every distinguished man in the United Kingdom — men with a 

 practice or business in which they had no spare moments ; 

 Stephenson, Scott Russell, Brunei, Bessemer, Nasmyth, Armstrong, 

 Warren, de la Rue, Spottiswoode, Whiteworth, Siemens, and so 

 on, through all that grand muster-roll of which any nation would 

 be proud. Now, I do not for one moment suppose that we with 

 four millions can make the same display of talented workers that 

 the United Kingdom can from thirty-seven millions ; but we can 

 find some, and I am quite sure that our association will be the 

 means of bringing to the front many men amongst us now 

 scattered through the country who have ability and genius, and 

 who are willing to take up some of the subjects which require 

 investigation and work them out ; men whose daily work is of 

 another kind, but who have nevertheless a keen love for science and 

 investigation and the spare time to take up a limited subject and 

 till up the whole detail. I am convinced that there are many 

 such who require no othei- stimulus than that of being invited to 

 render services of the highest order. They want to work, but do 

 not know wliere to begin ; while, on the other hand, a ci'owd of 

 suggestions meet the busy scientific worker at every turn. Ideas 

 that want realising are continually floating in his thoughts. 



