ix BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1887 231 



the President of the former year, that I would gladly 

 have served as doorkeeper in any house where Joule, 

 the father of science in Manchester, was enjoying his 

 just pre-eminence. 



u For it is indeed true that the mantle of John Dalton 

 has fallen on the shoulders of one well worthy to wear 

 it, one to whom science owes a debt of gratitude not 

 less than that which it willingly pays to the memory of 

 the originator of the atomic theory. James Prescott 

 Joule it was, who, in his determination of the 

 mechanical equivalent of heat, about the year of our 

 first Manchester meeting, gave to the world of science 

 the results of experiments which placed beyond reach 

 of doubt or cavil the greatest and most far-reaching 

 scientific principle of modern times, namely, that of the 

 conservation of energy. This, to use the words of 

 Tyndall, 'is indeed a generalisation of conspicuous 

 grandeur, fit to take rank with the principle of 

 gravitation more momentous, if that be possible 

 combining as it does the energies of the material 

 universe into an organic whole, and enabling the eye 

 of science to follow the flying shuttles of the universal 

 power as it weaves what the Erdgeist in " Faust" 

 calls "the living garment of God ".' 



" It is well, therefore, for us to remember, in the 

 midst of the turmoil of our active industrial and com- 

 mercial life, that Manchester not only well represents 

 the energy of England in these practical directions, but 

 that it possesses even higher claims to our regard and 

 respect as being the seat of discoveries of which the 

 value not only to pure science is momentous, but which 

 also lie at the foundation of all our material progress 

 and all our industrial success. For without a know- 

 ledge of the laws of chemical combination all the 

 marvellous results with which modern industrial 



