426 



NATURE 



{Sept. 14, 1876 



the Challenger Expedition was very successful, and highly- 

 appreciated. A good voice was added to a most agree- 

 able and flowing delivery, and as little as possible of com- 

 plicated ideas or reasoning was introduced. 



Two conversaziones took place on Thursday evening, 

 for what reason is not apparent. One was under the 

 superintendence of the local committee, in the Royal 

 Exchange. There was a little pretence at science, but 

 the assembly was converted into a ball. Is it right that 

 money raised by the local committee in the name of 

 the British Association should be devoted to such a pur- 

 pose ? If a ball is wanted, let there be a separate sub- 

 scription for that avowed purpose. The other assembly, 

 under the auspices of the Philosophical Society (of which 

 Sir William Thomson is president), took place in the 

 Corporation Galleries and the rooms of the Society. Art 

 and science were here fitly combined. Physical appa- 

 ratus received considerable illustration. Sir William 

 Thomson's demonstration on smoke rings and his new 

 patent syphon recorder being especially interesting. Mr. 

 James Thomson, F.G.S., attracted attention by his exhi- 

 bition of a series of sections of fossil corals, beautifully 

 shown by Birrell's new oxyhydrogen apparatus. The 

 great special collection of carboniferous fossils in these 

 galleries was exceedingly creditable to the geologists of 

 the Glasgow district ; Mr. James Thomson's very large 

 collections, including his splendid Labyrinthodont re- 

 mains (Pteroplax, &c.), formed a considerable proportion 

 of the whole. 



The museums of Glasgow are numerous and scattered. 

 To a considerable extent the same things are displayed 

 over again in the Hunterian Museum at the University, 

 the Kelvingrove Museum in the park of that name, the 

 Andersonian at Anderson's University, the Museum of 

 the Society of Naturalists in the Queen's Rooms, and the 

 Museum in the Corporation Galleries. Very great labour 

 has been expended in the formation of special collections 

 at these places, but we can only notice a very few of these. 

 In the University Museum the display of Mr. John 

 Young's private collection of fossils was most interesting 

 by reason of the great number and beauty of the pre- 

 parations of minute forms, especially of Foraminifera, 

 Sponges, Echinoderms and Polyzoa. Unfortunately the 

 great roof of the Museum has no light in it whatever, an 

 inconceivable detraction from its value. Other most no- 

 ticeable collections were a splendid series of Labyrintho- 

 donts and Fishes from Carluke Collieries, the exhibitor 

 of which desired his name to be unknown, and Mr. 

 David Robertson's collection of recent and Pleistocene 

 invertebrates. The great special exhibition of mechanical 

 inventions and industrial processes at the Kelvingrove 

 Museum must, we regret to say, be dismissed with a single 

 word of high commendation. Rare plants and animals 

 were to be seen at the Queen's Rooms, including many 

 unique specimens from Scottish habitats. Utricularia 

 and Drosera are of course brought forward. 



The assembly of foreigners on this occasion is very 

 notable. Section A includes in its forces Prof. Cremona, 

 of Rome ; M. Janssen, of Leyden ; Prof. Wiillner, of 

 Aix-la-Chapelle ; Prof. Eccher, of Florence ; Prof. 

 Fischer, Prof, von Quintus Icilius, of Hanover ; Profs. 

 Stoletow and Wladirmiosky. Section B has the aid of 

 Dr. Biedermann, of Berlin. Section C, Dr. A. Fritsch, of 

 Prague ; Prof, von Lasaulx, of Breslau ; Prof. F. Roemer, 

 of Breslau ; Section D rejoices in the presence of Fer- 

 dinand Cohn and Grube, of Breslau ; Ernst Haeckel, of 

 Jena ; Kronecker, of Leipsic ; and Prof. Morren, of 

 Lidge ; the Chevalier Negri reinforces Section E ; and 

 M. Bergeron, of Paris, Section G. 



The excursion programme, as might be expected in 

 this neighbouiiiood, has been only too embarrassing. 

 Saturday was . cry generally devoted to pleasure, although 

 the matheni aicians and physicists cleared off a long list 

 of papers, uud two other sections sat during part of the 



day. Those who could not devote the whole day to ex- 

 cursions had abundant entertainment provided for them 

 in Glasgow. Cameron's lecture to working men was 

 naturally very successful, and Dr. Carpenter subsequently 

 spoke at length on the humane treatment which should 

 be accorded to savages. One of the most interesting 

 trips was made by Mr. Duncan and a small party of 

 zoologists to Loch Fyne and the coast of Bute for the 

 purpose of dredging. Many successful hauls were made, 

 bringing up abundance of Comatulas, Aphrodites, As- 

 cidians, and Echini. Another dredging party went with 

 Mr. A. B. Stewart to Wemyss Bay. An attempt at 

 dredging in Loch Lomond only gave " a beggarly account 

 of empty bags." A geological party went to Ballagan, 

 Finnich Glen, &c., under the guidance of Mr. Wilson, of 

 Aucheveck. No very special scientific interest appears 

 to be included in the excursions for Thursday next, when 

 Paisley Abbey, Arran, Rothesay, and Loch Long, are to 

 be visited. 



So we are to meet in Dublin in 1878. Leeds pleaded 

 hard, claiming that there was a sort of understanding in 

 their favour last year. But the idea of alternating the 

 meetings between a university town and a great manu- 

 facturing town prevailed, in addition, no doubt, to 

 the eminence of the Dublin academicians attending 

 the meeting. Scarcely less interesting was the choice 

 of a president for the Plymouth meeting. The nomi- 

 nation of Prof. Allen Thomson by Dr. Hooker was 

 at once an honour to Glasgow and a demonstration 

 of regard for those studies of anatomy and embryo- 

 logy which do not always secure public renown. The 

 personal qualities of Dr. Allen Thomson make him all 

 that could be desired for a president. Of course his 

 nomination was unanimously accepted. The vice-presi- 

 dents appointed were the Earl of Mount-Edgcumbe, the 

 Earl of Devon, Lord Blachford, Mr. W. Spottiswoode, 

 F.R.S., Mr. W. Froude, F.R.S., and Mr. C. Spence Bate, 

 F.R.S. ; local secretaries, Prof. W. G. Adams, Mr. W. 

 Square, and Mr. Hamilton Whiteford. Mr. P. L. Sclater, 

 F.R.S. , was elected one of the general secretaries, in the 

 place of Dr. Michael Foster, F.R.S., who has resigned. 

 We meet again in Plymouth on August 15, 1877. 



SECTION A. 



mathematical and physical 



Opening Address by Prof. Sir "William Thomson, 

 F.R.S., D.C.L., &c.. President. 



A conversation which I had with Prof. Newcomb one evening 

 last June, in Prof. Henry's drawing-room, in the Smithsonian 

 Institution, Washington, has forced me to give all my spare 

 thoughts ever since to Hopkins's problem of Precession and 

 Nutation, assuming the earth a rigid spheroidal shell filled with 

 liquid. Six weeks ago, when I landed in England after a most 

 interesting trip to America and back, and became painfully 

 conscious that I must have the honour to address you here to- 

 day, I wished to write an address of which science in America 

 should be the subject. I came home, indeed, vividly impressed 

 with much that I had seen both in the Great Exhibition of 

 Philadelphia and out of it, showing the truest scientific spirit 

 and devotion, the originality, the inventiveness, the patien'. per- 

 severing thoroughness of work, the appreciativeness, and the 

 generous openmindedness and sympathy, fiom which the great 

 things of science come. 



&e\a) \4yeiv 'ArpeiSas 

 0eAco Se KaSfiou i^Seij'. 



I wish I could speak to you of the veteran Henry, generous 

 rival of Faraday in electromagnetic discovery ; of Peirce the 

 founder of high mathematics in America ; of Bache, and of the 

 splendid heritage he has left to America and to the world in the 

 United States Coast Survey ; of the great school of astronomers 

 which followed, Gould, Newton, Newcomb, Watson, Young, 

 Alvan Clarke, Rutherford, Draper, father and son : of Commander 

 Belknap and his great exploration of the Pacific depths by 

 pianoforte wire, with imperfect apparatus supplied from Glas- 

 gow, out of which he forced a success in his own way; 



