88 ADDRESS TO THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1881. 



of geography ; while palaeontology is the biology of the 

 past. 



And now I must conclude. I fear I ought to apo- 

 logise to you for keeping you so long, but still more 

 strongly do I wish to express my regret that there are 

 almost innumerable researches of great interest and 

 importance which fall within the last fifty years (many 

 even among those with which our Association has been 

 connected) to which I have found it impossible to refer. 

 Such for instance are, in biology alone, Owen's memo- 

 rable report on the homologies of the vertebrate skeleton, 

 Carpenter's laborious researches on the microscopic 

 structure of shells, the reports on marine zoology by 

 Allman, Forbes, Jeffreys, Spence Bate, Norman, and 

 others ; on Kent's Cavern by Pengelly ; those by Dun- 

 can on corals ; Woodward on Crustacea ; Carruthers, 

 Williamson, and others on fossil botany, and many 

 more. Indeed no one who has not had occasion to 

 study the progress of science throughout its various 

 departments can have any idea how enormous how 

 unprecedented the advance has been. 



Though it is difficult, indeed impossible, to measure 

 exactly the extent of the influence exercised by this 

 Association, no one can doubt that it has been very 

 considerable. For my own part, I must acknowledge 

 with gratitude how much the interest of my life has 

 been enhanced by the stimulus of our meetings, by the 

 lectures and memoirs to which I have had the advan- 

 tage of listening, and above all, by the many friend- 

 ships which I owe to this Association. 



Summing up the principal results which have been 

 attained in the last half-century we may mention (over 



