480 ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 



Gentlemen, this is to me a solemn occasion. Two-and-twenty 

 years are no inconsiderable portion even of the longest life ; 

 and that man's moral nature is not to be envied, who can contem- 

 plate the distant past thus vividly recalled without emotion. These 

 two decades have brought with them their own large measure of 

 change. The Body in which we are associated has grown up 

 from youth to maturity ; and many of its honoured names are now 

 sought for only in the imperishable records of their toils. The in- 

 stitutions which welcomed It here, upon its former visit to this City, 

 have all received the impress of the changing times. And yet, 

 amid all this change, we meet once more in the same city, in 

 the same room, to enter again on the same labours ; our assem- 

 blage is now, as it was before, dignified by the presence of the 

 Eepresentative of Majesty ; and I see around me, associated for 

 this task, many of those who shared it before ; the men whose 

 sagacity first perceived the want of such a Society as this, whose 

 energy supplied it, and whose wisdom directed its steps while 

 it had need of guidance. 



I trust I may be forgiven for dwelling thus far on the peculiar 

 circumstances under which we are here assembled ; and I now 

 hasten to discharge the task which the usages of this Chair impose 

 upon me, and proceed to lay before you, as well as I am able, 

 a brief sketch of the recent progress of some of those Sciences 

 to whose advancement we are pledged by our Institution. In 

 doing so, I gladly follow the practice which has of late become 

 the rule, namely, that your President for each year should bring 

 under your notice, chiefly, the recent additions to those departments 

 of Science with which he happens to be himself most familiar. It 

 is plainly fitting that he who addresses you should speak, as far as 

 he can, from his own acquired knowledge. Partial views are 

 better than inexact ones ; and provision is made for their comple- 

 tion in the annual change of your Officer. In the present in- 

 stance I derive the full advantage of this arrangement, inasmuch 

 as the subjects upon which I could not thus speak have been, most 

 of them, ably treated by my predecessor in this Chair. 



To commence, then, with Astronomy : The career of planetary 

 discovery, which began in the first years of the present century, 

 and was resumed in 1845, has since continued with unabated 

 ardour. Since 1846 not a single year has passed without some one 



