August 9, 1894] 



NA TV RE 



the last meeting at Oxford so famous four-and-thirty 

 years ago. The two other evening addresses are not 

 likely to fall far short in interest of the opening meeting. 

 As is usual, Thursday morning is devoted to the 

 addresses of the Presidents of .Sections, and three of 

 these are reported at length in this issue. The addresses 

 at O.xford dift'er necessarily in one respect from those 

 which are delivered at many other centres at 

 which the Association meets. O.xford has in its 

 relations to science a historical interest, as well as 

 a more present interest in virtue of its bemg a 

 seat of learning. It will accordingly be found that many 

 of the Sectional Presidents touch upon the history of 

 science as exemplified by Oxford, and enlarge upon its 

 needs as an instrument of culture and education. Oxford 

 indeed, though it is not generally supposed to be a 

 scientific University, has a past which it may look on 

 with pride. Few may remember that Roger Bacon, an 

 earlv devotee and martyr to science, lived and worked at 

 Oxford, and that this is the sex-centenary of the reputed 

 year of his death. A second period, mentioned by Prof 

 Dixon in his opening address, is that of Robert Boyle 

 and his colleagues, among whom was for a short time the 

 illustrious Harvey, a band of men who were virtually the 

 founders of the Royal Society. 



The proceedmgs of the Sections derive great interest 

 from the unusual number of communications by eminent 

 foreign men of science. The proceedings of some of the 

 Sections have already been indicated in previous numbers 

 of Nature; those of others are not even now settled 

 into definite shape. In Section A (Mathematical and 

 Physical Science), besides the joint meetings with Sec- 

 tion G, which have already been mentioned, there are, 

 amongst other important papers set down for Thursday, 

 one on " Preliminary Experiments proving the Electri- 

 fication of Air by the Subtraction of Water from it,' by 

 Lord Kelvin and Magnus McLean ; another, by Lord 

 Kelvin and Alexander Gait, on " Leyden Jar Discharges 

 through Divided Channels,'' and a third, by Prof G. 

 (>uincke, on "The Formation of Soap Bubbles by the 

 Contact of Alkaline Oleateswith Water." On Saturday 

 Prof. Everett reads on " Some Jointed Frames or Link- 

 ages," and Dr. P. H. Schoute on " The Order ot the 

 Groups related to the Anallagmatic Displacements of the 

 Regular Bodies in ^/-dimensional space." On Monday 

 there is a paper by Lord Rayleigh, of which the litle is 

 not yet published, and others follow by Prof. H. H. 

 Turner, Prof. Viriamu Jones, Mr, F. H. Newall, and 

 Prof. O. J. Lodge. 



In Section D, the Department of Botany, which meets 

 by itself in Magdalen College School, has some very 

 interesting matter. There are important papers by 

 Prof. D. H. Campbell, of the L'niversity of California, 

 and Prof F. O. Bower, on " The Morphology of X'ascular 

 Cryptogams " ; by Prof E. Strasburger, on " Chromo- 

 somenzahl " ; by Dr. Leopold Kny, on " Correlation 

 between Root and Shoot"; by Prof. Green, on "In- 

 fluence of Light on D iastase," and by Prof Dukinfield 

 Scott on " The Structure of Fossil Plants and their 

 bearing on Botanical Problems." 



The Anthropological Section, of which some account 

 has been given in an earlier number, will devote the 

 greater part of Friday and Monday to discussions on 

 Early Man in Western Europe, in which M. Emile Car- 

 tailhac and Comte Goblet d'Alviella will take a leading 

 part ; and on Tuesday and Wednesday, various papers 

 on Ethnography will range from North Africa to 

 Australia. 



At the soiree in the L'niversity Museum, on Thursday 

 evening, there will be a few interesting exhibits, chief 

 among which will be Prof llenrici's linkage models, 

 exhibitions by the Cambridge Scientific Instrument 

 Company, by Prof Everett, and demonstrations of 

 anthropometrical methods, by Dr. J. G. Garson. 



NO. 1293, VOL. 50] 



Inaugural Address by the Most Hon. the Marquis 

 OF Salisuurv, K.G., D.C.L., F.R.S., Cha.\cellor of 

 the University of O.'iFORD, President. 



My functions are of a more complicated character than 

 usually is assigned to the occupants of this chair. As Chan- 

 cellor of the University it is my duty to tender to the British 

 Association a hearty welcome, which it is my duty as President 

 of the Association to accept. As President of the Association I 

 convey, most unworthily, the voice of English science, as many 

 worthy and illustrious Presidents have done before me : but Id 

 representing the University I represent far more fittingly the 

 learners who are longing to hear the lessons which the first 

 teachers of English science have come .is visitors to teach. I 

 am bound to express on behalf of the University our sense of 

 the good feeling towards that body which is the motive of this 

 unusual arrangement. But as far as I am jiersonally concerned, 

 it is attended with some embarrassing results. In presence of 

 the high priests of science I am only a layman, and all the skill 

 of all ihe chemists the Association contains will not trans- 

 mule a layman into any more precious kind of metal. Yet it is 

 my hard destiny to have to address on scientific matters prob- 

 al)ly the most competent scientific audience in the world. If a 

 country gentleman, who was also a colonel of Volunteers, were 

 by any mental aberration on the part of the Commander-in- 

 Chief to be appointed to review an army corps at Aldershot, 

 ail military men would doubtless feel a deep compassion for his 

 inevitable fate. I bespeak some spark of that divine emotion 

 when I am attempting to discharge under similar conditions a 

 scarcely less hopeless duty. At least, however, I have the con- 

 solation of feeling that I am free from some of the anxieties 

 which have fallen to those who have preceded me as Presi- 

 dents in this city. The relations of the Association and the 

 University are those of entiie sympathy and good will, as 

 becomes common workers in the sacred cause of diffusing 

 enlightenment and knowledge. But we must admit that it 

 was not always so. A curious record of a very different 

 state of feeling came to light last year in the interesting bio- 

 graphy of Dr. Pusey, which is the posthumous work of Canon 

 Liddon. In it is related the ^first visit of the Association to 

 Oxford in 1832. Mr. Keble, at that time a leader of University 

 thought, writes indignantly to his friend to complain that the 

 honorary degree of D. C.L. had been bestowed upon some of 

 the most distinguished members of the Association: *'The 

 Oxford Doctors," he says, " have truckled >adly to the spirit of 

 the times in receiving the hodge-podge of philosophers as they 

 did." It is amusing, at this distance of time, to note the names 

 of the hodge-podge of philosophers whose academical distinc- 

 tions so sorely vexed Mr. Keble's gentle spirit. They were 

 Brown, Brewster, Faraday, and Dalton. When we recollect 

 the lovable and serene character of Keble's nature, and that he 

 was at that particular date probably the man in the University 

 who had the greatest power over other men's minds, we can 

 measure the distance we have traversed since that time ; and 

 the rapidity with which the converging paths of these two intel- 

 lectual luminaries, the University and the Association, have 

 approximated to each other. This sally of Mr. Keble's was no 

 passing or accidental caprice. It represented a deep-seated 

 sentiment in this place of learning, which had its origin in 

 historic causes, and which has only died out in our time. One 

 potent cause of it was that both bodies were teachers of science, 

 but did not then in any degree attach the same meaning to 

 that word. Science with the University for many genera- 

 tions bore a signification different from that which belongs to 

 it in this assembly. It represented the knowledge which alone 

 in the Middle .-^ges was thought worthy of the name of science. 

 It was ihe knowledge gained not by external observation, but 

 by mere reflection. The student's microscope was turned in- 

 ward upon the recesses of his own brain ; and when the supply 

 of facts and realities failed, as it very speedily did, the scien- 

 tific imagination was not wanting to fumish to successive 

 generations an interminable series of conflicting speculations. 

 'Ihat science — science in our academical sense — -had its day of 

 rapid growth, of boundless aspiration, of enthusiastic votaries. 

 It fascinated the rising intellect of the time, and it is said 

 — people were not jiarlicular about figures in those d.ays — that 

 its attractions were at one lime potent enough to gather round 

 the University thirty thousand students, who for the sake of 

 learning its leaching were willing lo endure a life of the 

 severest hardship. Such a slate ol feeling is now an archao- 

 logical curiosity. The revolt against Aristotle is now some 



