230 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



towards assisting the progress of science and the cause 

 of higher education in Manchester, and adding that he 

 never remembered at any meeting of the Association 

 the attendance of so many eminent men and so many 

 coming from foreign countries to do honour to its 

 President. 



I opened my address with the following words : 

 " Manchester, distinguished as the birthplace of two 

 of the greatest discoveries of modern science, heartily 

 welcomes to-day, for the third time, the members and 

 friends of the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science. On the occasion of the first meeting in 

 this city, in the year 1842, the President, Lord Francis 

 Egerton, commenced his address with a touching 

 allusion to the veteran of science, John Dalton, the 

 great chemist, the discoverer of the laws of chemical 

 combination, the framer of the atomic theory, upon 

 which the modern science of chemistry may truly be 

 said to be based. Lord Francis Egerton said : ' Man- 

 chester is still the residence of one whose name 

 is uttered with respect wherever science is cultivated, 

 who is here to-night to enjoy the honours due to a long 

 career of persevering devotion to knowledge, and to 

 receive from myself, if he will condescend to do so, the 

 expression of my own deep personal regret that in- 

 crease of years, which to him up to this hour has been 

 but increase of wisdom, should have rendered him in 

 respect of mere bodily strength unable to fill on this 

 occasion an office which in his case would have 

 received more honour than it could confer. I do 

 regret that any cause should have prevented the 

 present meeting in his native town from being asso- 

 ciated with the name' and here I must ask you to 

 allow me to exchange the name of Dalton in 1842 for 

 that of Joule in 1887, and to add again, in the words of 



