

.s/A' WILLIAM SIEMENS, F.R3. 317 



mind m;>ilr him almost a type of unsurpassed excellence, 

 telegraphic news reached Cambridge, just a month ago, to the 

 clltct that our General Secretary, Professor F. M. Balfour, had lost 

 his life during an attempted ascent of the Aiguille Blanche de 

 Pe"teret. Although only thirty years of age, few men have won 

 distinction so rapidly and so deservedly. After attending the 

 lectures of Dr. Michael Foster, he completed his studies of Biology 

 under Dr. Anton Dohrn at the Zoological Station of Naples in 

 1875. In 1878 he was elected a Fellow, and in November last a 

 Member of Council of the Royal Society, when he was also awarded 

 one of the Royal medals for his embryological researches. Within 

 a short interval of time Glasgow University conferred on him their 

 honorary degree of LL.D., he was elected President of the Cam- 

 bridge Philosophical Society, and after having declined very 

 tempting offers from the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh, 

 he accepted a professorship of Animal Morphology created for 

 him by his own University. Few men could have borne without 

 hurt such a stream of honourable distinctions, but in young Balfour 

 genius and independence of thought were happily blended with 

 industry and personal modesty ; these won for him the friend- 

 ship, esteem, and admiration of all who knew him. 



It affords me great satisfaction to qualify the sad impression 

 produced by this event, by the happy one of the safe return to 

 these shores of that most persistent and disinterested Arctic ex- 

 plorer, Mr. B. Leigh Smith, together with his much enduring crew 

 and valiant rescuers. 



Since the days of the first meeting of the Association at York 

 in 1831, great changes have taken place in the means at our 

 disposal for exchanging views, either personally or through the 

 medium of type. The creation of the railway system has enabled 

 congenial minds to attend frequent meetings of those special 

 societies which have sprung into existence since the foundation of 

 the British Association, amongst which I need only name here the 

 Physical, Geographical, Meteorological, and Anthropological, cul- 

 tivating abstract science, and the Institution of Mechanical Engi- 

 neers, of Naval Architects, the Iron and Steel Institute, the 

 Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians, the Gas Institute, 

 the Sanitary Institute, and the Society of Chemical Industry, 



