Sept. 7, 1876] 



NATURE 



399 



industry, and particularly- in those which give a free scope for 

 the application of scientific skill. " Let us not suppose, ' says 

 M^ Wurtz ;n his recent report on Artificial Dyes, "that the 

 distance is so great between theory and its industrial applications. 

 This report would have been written in vain, if it had not 

 brought clearly into view the immense influence of pure science 

 upon the progress of industry. If unfortunately the sacred flame 

 of science should burn dimly or be extinguished, the practical 

 arts would soon fall into rapid decay. The outlay which is in- 

 curred by any country for the promotion of science and of high 

 instruction will yield a certain return ; and Germany has rot had 

 long to wait for the ingathering of the fruits of her far-sighted 

 policy. Thirty or forty years ago, industry could scarcely be 

 said to exist there ; it is now widely spread and successful." As 

 an illustration of the truth of these remarks, I may refer to the 

 newest of European industries, but one which in a short space 

 of time has attained considerable magnitude. It appears (and I 

 make the statement on the authority of M, Wurtz) that the arti- 

 ficial dyes produced last year in Germany exceeded in value those 

 of allthe rest of Europe, including England and France. Yet Ger- 

 many has no special advantage for this manufacture except the 

 training of her practical chemists. We are not, it is true, to 

 attach undue importance to a single case ; but the rapid growth 

 of other and larger industries points in the same direction, and 

 will, I trust, secure some consideration for the suggestions I have 

 ventured to make. 



The intimate relations which exist between abstract science 

 and its applifations to the uses of lite have always been kept 

 steadily in view by this Association, and the valuable Reports, 

 which are a monument to the industry and zeal of its members, 

 embrace every part of the domain of science. It is with the 

 greater confidence, therefore, that I have ventured to suggest 

 from this chair that no partition wall should anywhere be raised 

 up between pure and applied science. 



The same sentiment animates our vigorous ally, the French 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, which, rivalling, 

 as it already does, this Association in the high scientific 

 character of its proceedings, bids fair in a few years to call 

 forth the same interest in science and its results, throughout 

 the great provincial towns of France, which the British Asso- 

 ciation may justly claim to have already effected in this country. 

 No better proof can be given of the wide base upon which the 

 French Association rests than the fact that it was presided 

 over last year by an able representative of commerce and 

 industry, and this year by one who has long held an exalted 

 position in the world of science, and has now the rare dis- 

 tinction of representing in her historic Academies the hterature 

 as well as the science of France. 



Whatever be the result of our efforts to advance science and 

 industry, it requires no gift of prophecy to declare that the 

 boundless resources which the supreme Author and Upholder of 

 the Universe has provided for the use of man will, as time rolls 

 on, be more and more fully applied to the improvement of the 

 physical, and, through the improvement of the physical, to the 

 elevation of the moral condition of the human family. Unless, 

 however, the history of the future of our race be wholly at va- 

 riance with the history of the past, the progress of mankind will 

 be marked by alternate periods of activity and repose ; nor will 

 it be the work of any one nation or of any one race. To the erec- 

 tion of the edifice of civilised life, as it now exists, all the higher 

 races of the world have contributed ; and if the balance were 

 accurately struck, the claims of Asia for her portion of the work 

 would be immense, and those of northern Africa not insignifi- 

 cant. Steam-power has of late years produced greater changes 

 than probably ever occurred before in so short a time. But 

 the resources of nature are not confined to steam, nor to the 

 combustion of coaL The steady water-wheel and the rapid tur- 

 bine are more perfect machines than the stationary steam-engine; 

 and glacier- fed rivers with natural reservoirs, if fully turned to 

 account, would supply an unlimited and nearly constant source 

 of power, depending solely for its continuance upon solar heat. 

 But no immediate dislocation of industry is to be feared, al- 

 though the turbine is already at work on the Rhine and the 

 Rhone. In the struggle to maintain their high position in 

 science and its applications, the countrymen of Newton and 

 Watt will have no ground for alarm so long as they hold 

 fast to their old traditions, and remember that the greatest 

 nations have fallen when they relaxed in those habits of 

 intelligent and steady industry upon which all permanent success 

 depends. 



SECTION C. 



GEOLOGY. 



Opening Address by Prof. J. Young, M.D., F.G.S., 

 President of the Section. 



When the British Association met in Glasgow twenty-one 

 years ago, Sir Roderick Murchison presided over Section C, 

 and was surrounded by a brilliant company, whose names, now 

 historical, were even then familiar for their accuracy of observa- 

 tion, for philosophic generalisation, and for the eloquence with 

 which their science was clothed in words that charmed while 

 they instructed. Lyell, Hugh Miller, Sedgwick, Jukes, Smith 

 of Jordan Hill, Thomas Graham, Agassiz, Salter, Leonard 

 Homer, John Phillips, Robert Chambers, H. D. Rogers, 

 Charles Maclaren, Sir W. Logan. The list is a heavy one even 

 for twenty-one years, and the changed circumstances wdl be 

 fully realised by Nicol, Harkness, Egerton, Darwin, Ramsay, 

 and others when they find Murchison's place occupied by one 

 who holds it rather by the courtesy of the Council to the Insti- 

 tution in which we are assembled than by any claim he has to 

 the honour. 



It would be out of place for me to do more than refer to the 

 geological advantages which have given to Glasgow its com- 

 mercial greatness. In the Handbook prepared at the instance 

 of the Local Committee will be found gathered together all the 

 positive knowledge we possess regarding the mineralogy, strati- 

 graphy, and palseontology of the west of Scotland. The speci- 

 mens themselves' are exhibited in the Hunterian Museum and 

 in the Corporation Galleries ; and I take it upon me to say the 

 Glasgow geologists are as ready as ever to assist the investigations 

 of students in special departments with all the material which 

 richly fossiliferous strata yield and the careful skill of assiduous 

 collectors can secure. 



Thus relieved from entering into local details, I would ask 

 your attention for a short while to some of the difficulties which 

 a teacher experiences in?summarising the principles of geology 

 for his students. 



I may be pardoned for reminding you that as yet there are in 

 Scotland only two specially endowed teachers of geology. In 

 the Universities, that science for which Scotsmen had done so 

 much received only the odd hours spared from zoology. In 

 1867 the two courses were separated in Glasgow; in 1870 Sir 

 R. J. Murchison founded the Chair of Geology in Edinburgh ; 

 in 1876 Mr. Honyman Gillespie endowed a Lectureship on 

 Geology in Glasgow, not separating it from zoology, but rather 

 desiring the two to remain associated, while means were pro- 

 vided for tutorial instruction in the elementary work of the class. 

 When next the Association meets in Glasgow, I hope that the 

 services which science has rendered to mining and metallurgy 

 may have been recognised by those who have reaped the benefit. 

 During the efforts of years to obtain provision for systematic 

 teaching in mining and metallurgy, practical and scientific have 

 always been set in opposition by those whom I addressed. In 

 another twenty years it may have become apparent that it is 

 possible for a man to be both practical and scientific, and that 

 the combination is most conducive to economy. 



Geology occupies the anomalous position of being a science 

 without a special terminology — a position largely the result of 

 its history, but to some extent inherent in its subject-matter. 

 Treated of by Hutton and Playfair and their opponents in the 

 ordinary language of conversation, current phrases were adopted 

 into science not so much acquiring special meanings as adding 

 new ambiguities to those already existing. Every one seemed to 

 understand them at once ; and thus, as no one was obliged to 

 attach very precise meanings to them, the instruments of research 

 became its impediments, and the phrases in common use at the 

 beginning of the century have transmitted to the present day the 

 erroneous ideas of those by whom they were first employed. 

 When Lyell, in 1832, methodised the knowledge accumulated 

 prior to that date, he had, in organising the science, to choose 

 between inventing an appropriate terminology and adopting that 

 in common use. By doing the latter he promoted the popularity 

 of the science, though at the cost of some subsequent confusion ; 

 by attempting the former he would have set in arms against him 

 those who would, according to the pedantry of the time, have 

 denounced his neologisms and formed in them a decorous veil 

 for the objections which they entertained on other grounds to his 

 views. Lyell was not the man to face the latter difficulty, nor 

 can it be charged against him that he was wittingly neglectful of 

 the interests of science. But to the use of conversational language 

 are traceable certain assumptions to which I desire to draw your 



