224 Address delivered at the sixth and last 
and that it will not be poisoned by rank or unprofitable 
infusions, we have an assurance in the cordial superintendence 
of those individuals who are most interested in preserving its 
purity. It is one of the most auspicious signs of the times in 
which we live, that men of science, without neglecting those 
more recondite and technical performances in hich it is 
necessary to concentrate their knowledge, unite in arraying it 
in that attractive exterior which recommends it to the good 
offices of every man. 
The impulse imparted to the propagation of our science 
throughout this country, from these and similar causes, has 
been already pointed out to you from this chair. You have 
heard that in almost every town of any note in the united 
kingdoms, societies have been established, in which the stud 
of zoology forms a prominent object. I may add, that even 
in these Tnstitutions which have hitherto been most backward 
in acknowledging the natural sciences as a part of their 
system of education, a door is now opened to the admission of 
them. Cambridge has led the way. Her Literary and Philo- 
sophical Society has formed the nucleus of a museum, that 
promises most auspiciously to zoology. In Oxford the same 
success has attended our cause; and the spirit of Ashmole 
and Tradescant has revived in those brother naturalists, who, 
united in taste and liberality as in blood, have claimed for the 
name of Duncan the gratitude, not merely of their own Alma 
Mater, but of the world of science at large. While it has been 
reserved for this age and this metropolis to wipe away the 
opprobrium so long attached to England, that she possessed 
no chair of zoology. And to the Ties and highly gifted 
managers of the London University it is to be Ateributeds that 
a professor ship in that science has been instituted, and ably 
filled, during the past year. 
Non has fhe impulse been limited to the parent country ; 
but seems to have pervaded to the remotest of her settlements, 
I have to record, among the events of the past year, the esta- 
blishment of a scientific association among the British resi- 
dents at Canton, for the purpose of investigating all that is of 
scientific value in that quarter of the globe. In Demerara, 
and the neighbouring dependencies of British Guiana, a 
similar institution has been formed, with similar objects, 
under the patronage of the present enlightened governor, Sir 
Benjamin d@’Urban. The same spirit is diffusing itself in 
many of the West India Islands. And in Quebec a society 
has been lately embodied, the beneficial effects of which have 
already appeared in the publication of a volume of Transac- 
tions. Some of the papers in that work, devoted to natural 
