2 REPORT— 1887. 



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 very 

 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 commercial 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 knowledge of the laws of chemical com- 

 bination all the marvellous results with which modern industrial chemistry 

 has astonished the world could not have been achieved, whilst the know- 

 ledge of the quantitative relations existing between the several forms of 

 energy, and the possibility of expressing their amount in terms of ordinary 

 mechanics, are matters which now constitute the life-breath of every 

 branch of applied science. For example, before Dalton's discovery every 

 manufacturer of oil of vitriol — a substance now made each week in thou- 

 sands of tons within a few miles of this spot — every manufacturer had his 

 own notions of the quantity of sulphur which he ought to bum in order to 

 make a certain weight of sulphuric acid, but he had no idea that only a 

 given weight of sulphur can unite with a certain quantity of oxygen 

 and of water to form the acid, and that an excess of any one of the com- 

 ponent parts was not only useless but harmful. Thus, and in tens of 

 thousands of other instances, Dalton replaced rule of thumb by scientific 

 principle. In like manner the applications of Joule's determination of the 

 mechanical equivalent of heat are even more general ; the increase and 

 measurement of the efficiency of our steam engines and the power of our 

 dynamos are only two of the numerous examples which might be adduced 

 of the practical value of Joule's work. 



If the place calls up these thoughts, the time of our meeting also 

 awakens memories of no less interest, in the recollection that we this 

 year celebrate the Jubilee of her Most Gracious Majesty's accession to 

 the throne. It is right that the members of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science should do so with heart and voice, for 

 although science requires and demands no royal patronage, we thereby 

 express the feeling which must be uppermost in the hearts of all men of 



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