SECTION PHYSICS (including Astronomy). 



President: Mr. W. SPOTTISWOODE, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S. 



Vice-Presidents : 



II Commendatore Professore 



BLASERNA. 



Mr. DE LA RUE, D.C.L., F.R.S. 

 Professor CAREY FOSTER, B.A., 



F.R.S. 



Professor GUTHRIE, F.R.S. 

 Herr Professor Dr. HELMHOLTZ. 



Herr Professor Dr. RIJKE. 

 M. le Professeur SORET. 

 Professor TYNDALL, D.C.L., 



LL.D., F.R.S. 

 Professor SIR W. THOMSON, 



LL.D., F.R.S. 

 M. le Professeur WARTMANN. 



May i6//z, 1876. 



MR. SPOTTISWOODE : The opening of this Exhibition may prove an 

 epoch in the science of Great Britain. We find here collected, for the 

 first time within the walls of one building, a large number of the most 

 remarkable instruments, gathered from all parts of the civilised world, 

 and from almost every period of scientific research. These instru- 

 ments, it must be remembered, are not merely masterpieces of con- 

 structive skill, but are the visible expression of the penetrative thought, 

 the mechanical equivalent of the intellectual processes of the great 

 minds whose outcome they are. 



There have been in former years, both in this country and else- 

 where, exhibitions including some of the then newest inventions of 

 the day; but none have been so exclusively devoted to scientific 

 objects, nor any so extensive in their range as this. There exist in 

 most seats of learning museums of instruments accumulated from 

 the laboratories in which the professors have worked ; but these are, 

 by their very nature, confined to local traditions. The present one is, 

 I believe, the first serious, or at all events the first successful, attempt 

 at a cosmopolitan collection. 



B 



