PREFACE. 



Centenary of the Literary and Philosophical 

 Society of Manchester. 



WHEN the Society was near its Centenary it seemed 

 good to the members that I should be requested to 

 write some account of its doings. I said that I 

 could not give time to write a history : it was well 

 known that I was much occupied. I was told, how- 

 ever, to do just as much or as little as it suited, since 

 no one seemed inclined to take up the subject. I 

 should have preferred to see the work done by one 

 who had lived from his earliest years in Manchester, 

 and whose romance of life was associated with the 

 neighbourhood, as then the treatment might have 

 suited more readers. My deepest local interests are 

 still in Scotland, although most of my life has been 

 spent here ; still I have of course no small pleasure 

 in tracing the course of ideas in chemistry, and in 



