178 



NATURE 



[December 3, 1914 



ship's striking, than to prevent her being beaten to 

 pieces after she l^ad struck." 



But whatever part Providence may have 

 taken in the transaction, it may be added, 

 to give honour where honour is due, that she 

 was materially assisted by the ingenuity of one 

 of the midshipmen (Mr. Monkhouse), who carried out 

 a method he had learned in the merchant service of 

 introducing oakum and wool into the leak by rubbing 

 a staysail with pieces of these materials loosely 

 attached to it along the damaged bottom ; so that a 

 single pump was afterwards sufficient to keep the 

 vessel afloat until a convenient place was found where 

 she could be beached and repaired ; although all hands 

 that could be spared to work at three pumps were 

 before scarcely able to keep the water down, and the 

 men would soon have had to relinquish the attempt 

 from sheer fatigue. One contemplates with dismay 

 even at this distance of time the blank in geographical 

 knowledge which would have persisted for many a 

 long year if Captain Cook had met his fate off Cape 

 Tribulation in 1770 instead of in Karakakoa Bay in 

 Hawaii somewhat less than nine years later. 



I am now going to ask you to make a jump with 

 me of about sixty years and of half the circumference 

 of the globe in order that we may be present at the 

 birth of the British Association. This event, which 

 was to prove of much greater importance than the 

 founders of the Association could have conceived, 

 occurred in the year 183 1. A number of gentlemen, 

 amongst whom are included the well-known names of 

 Brewster, Lyell, Vernon Harcourt, Murchison, and 

 Phillips, who were interested in science and believed 

 in its value to the community, met in the month of 

 September of that year in the ancient city of York. 

 The object of the gathering was to try to spread 

 a knowledge of the progress of science throughout 

 the country by presenting new scientific facts, not 

 only to other men of science, but also to the general 

 public. These functions were already efficiently per- 

 formed for London by the Royal Society and by the 

 Royal Institution respectively, but not^iing of the 

 same nature had been hitherto provided for the 

 provinces. With this laudable object it was decided 

 to establish a peripatetic society which would visit 

 provincial centres in Great Britain and Ireland in 

 turn, and thus carry the torch of scientific enlighten- 

 ment even to remote parts of the United Kingdom. 



I think that if the founders of the British Associa- 

 tion could have been told that in eighty odd years the 

 Association would be carrying this torch to the Anti- 

 podes and would be holding a meeting of the Associa- 

 tion at a place in New South Wales — of which 

 Queensland was then a part — which had not even 

 been marked on the map, their astonishment would 

 have been nearly as great as that which I have sup- 

 posed that Captain Cook and his companions would 

 have experienced sixty years earlier could they have 

 received similar information. That the holding of 

 this meeting should be possible is due to the progress 

 of the sciences which the Association was established 

 to assist, and certainly very largely to the advances 

 in what our American cousins call " transportation " 

 ■ — a term which had a somewhat more restricted 

 meaning in the early days of this community. At 

 the time of that memorable meeting in York — 

 although it is true the Liverpool and Manchester Rail- 

 way had been opened in the previous year — journey- 

 ing by land still depended in its most advanced form 

 upon the mail-coach, a vehicle which was regarded 

 by our great-great-grandfathers as the ne plus ultra 

 of speed and convenience, although we ourselves look 

 back upon it as merely an interesting and picturesque 

 phase in the evolutionary history of methods of loco- 



NO. 2353, VOL. 94] 



motion. And it was not until seven years later that 

 the first passenger steamer crossed the Atlantic, and 

 the doom of the sailing ship was pronounced. Prob- 

 ably our own great-great-grandchildren will regard 

 our present methods in much the same light as we 

 do the old mail-coach and sailing ship, and wonder 

 that we should have been so long satisfied with the 

 servitude of land and water when the freedom of the 

 air was to be had for the asking. 



It must be admitted that this establishment of a 

 scientific association for the provinces of the United 

 Kingdom was a brave project at a time when four 

 days or more were required by a coach to cover the 

 two hundred miles intervening between London and 

 York — a distance which now occupies an express train 

 less than four hours, and which can be done by aero- 

 plane in little more than half that time. York was, 

 however, a relatively convenient centre, to which 

 many lines of coaches converged from all parts of the 

 country. Subsequent meetings held in Oxford, Cam- 

 bridge, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Bristol must have 

 presented greater difficulties, and for scientific men 

 from remote parts to get across country to some of 

 these places a month would scarcely have been too 

 much to devote to the to-and-fro journey. Yet nowa- 

 days we think less of the voyage to and through 

 Australia than our forefathers did of the journey from 

 London to Edinburgh, so easy and comfortable is 

 travelling rendered by the palatial steamers and 

 luxurious trains which are at our disposal. 



Those of us who are getting on in life remember 

 when the Association first began to think of extend- 

 ing its sphere of operations beyond the confines of 

 the United Kingdom. This was about thirty years 

 ago, and the occasion was an invitation from Canada 

 that we should include Montreal in our visiting list. 

 The older and more conservative elements of the 

 Association were up in arms at the suggestion. It 

 was prophesied that such a change would break up 

 the Association ; that most of the regular habitues 

 would not attend; that the meeting would have no 

 scientific value, and would be little more than a sort 

 of glorified picnic. It was also argued that if we go 

 to Canada the Australians will be wanting us to visit 

 their country, and this was regarded as indeed a 

 reductio ad absurdum ! But not only were these 

 gloomy prognostications not fulfilled, but the dreaded 

 sequel has come about without any manifest appear- 

 ance of absurdity, and we have been in Australia for 

 nearly a month, honoured guests of the Common- 

 wealth, more than delighted with our reception, and 

 hoping that we may leave behind us some elements 

 of permanent benefit, although we cannot but feel 

 that we shall be taking away, not only in general 

 knowledge and experience, but also in some matters 

 which are exclusively scientific far more than most of 

 us have been able to bring. 



These visits to the Dominions, which at one time 

 seemed so impossible and are now so easy, exhibit 

 the Association from a point of view which could, as 

 I have said, never have been taken by its founders, 

 however clearly they may have figured out the scien- 

 tific benefits to be derived from its annual reunions. 

 They furnish the most direct evidence possible of the 

 bond which unites us into that singular body, the 

 Empire, a body of which we are each and all in- 

 ordinately proud, although it only consists of a 

 congeries of States which are knit together by 

 what in times of peace has sometimes seemed a 

 perilously slender tie. The religious and political 

 views which are prevalent in the several constituents 

 of this inchoate body may and do differ toto coelo, 

 and one might almost expect these differences to act 

 i centrifugally and tend in the direction of disintegra- 



