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TUANSACTIONS OF f-iJXTION 0. 



87o 



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Section G.— :MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 

 Pim-iiDivNT 01)' TUK Slciiux — .Sir F. J. l>KAMWELr,, LI..D., F.K.8., V.JMnst.C'.F 



TJIIIIISD. iY, A I GUST 2%. 

 The Pklsidext delivered the following Address : — 



Ix a family of seven cliildren there are two who are of paramount importance: 

 the eldest, at the one end of tlie scale, inipnrtant, l)eeanse lie is the heir, the first- 

 born; and at the other end of tiio scale, the little Benjamin, important because ho 

 is the lust, the youngest, and the dearest. 'I'he position of little Benjamin is not, 

 perlmps, quite as honourable as that of the heir, and not, wiien the family breaks 

 up, by any means as good ; but while the family holds togciher, Benjamin receives 

 an amount of attention and consideration that does not fall lo tlie lot of any one of 

 the intermediates, not even to the lieir himself. But thee is one risk about Benja- 

 min's position, a risk that cannot appertain to the post of the lirst-born; little 

 Bt'iijamin may be deposed by the advent of a lesser IJenjamin than himself, whereas 

 the tirst-born becomes (if possible) still more the firsi-uorn for each addition to the 

 family. Perhaps some of you may say, Be it so ; but wliat has this to do with the 

 address of the President of .Section G ? Those who make this inquiry, however, 

 certainly have not present lo their minds the change that has this year taken place. 

 Up to and including the Southport meeting, Section G was the little Benjamin 

 amoni.' the seven sons of the B.A. (I will not waste your time by giving the name 

 of the Association in full, nor will I atliont you by using an abbreviation which 

 is occasionally improperly applied), but at Montreal appears .Section H, and Q- 

 becomes relegated among those uninteresting members of the family who are 

 neither the important head inn' the cherished tail. I grieve for Benjamin, and I 

 think the present occasion an apt one for magnifying Section G. Apt for two 

 reasons: the foregoing one, that II has deposed it from its position; the other, that 

 we are meeting in ^Montreal — and in reference to this latter reason, let me ask, Is 

 it not the fact that to the labours ot the men who have been, or are (or ought to 

 lie) members of Section G is due the possibility of the meeting taking place on this 

 side of the Atlantic ? 



At our jubilee meeting at York, I called the attention of the Section to the 

 fact that in 1881, when the Association first met in that city, they arrived there 

 laboriously by the stfige-coach, and tliat practically the .Manchester and Liverpool, 

 the .Stockton and Darlington, and some few others, were the only railways then in 

 existence. I also called their attention to the fact that in IS.'Jl there were but 

 feiy few steamers. I find the total number registered in the United Kingdom in 

 'hat year was only 447. If under this condition of things, the proposition had 

 Ijeen made in 1832 at O.'sford, as it was made in 1882 at Southampton, that the next 

 meeting but one of the Association should take place in Montreal, the extreme 

 probability is tliat the proposer would have been safely lodged in a lunatic asylum, 

 tor suf^gesting that that which might have involved a six-weeks' voyage out, and a 

 four-weeks' voyage back, could ever be seriously entertained. Further, to give 

 once more the hackneyed quotation, some few years after this, i.e., in 1836, Dr. 

 Larilner established to his own satisfaction conclusively, that no vessel could ever 

 steam across the ^Vtlantic the whole way. A striking instance of the mistakes 

 made by scientific speculation ; a branch of science widely ditlering in the value of 



