10 ANNUAL 
of useful work. We have only to look at the volume just 
issued by the Society to perceive how very varied have been 
the subjects, and how specially competent have been the men, who 
have initiated and sustained the discussious. The great value 
of the Victoria Institute is, that it brings forward special subjects 
of a scientific character through the medium of those who have 
devoted their attention to the particular line of research 
connected with those matters, while on the evenings upon which 
the discussions are taken, those who are interested in the questions 
dealt with, and capable of criticising or confirming the views of 
the authors of the papers, are enabled to enter into a full and 
efficient examination of the points at issue. I believe there 
are comparatively few persons in this room who are competent to 
criticise all the papers contained in the remarkable volume just 
issued by the Institute. No single individual is capable of entering 
into the details of these varied branches of science, and I think I 
may say we are all aware that in those particular departments of 
science which we do cultivate, we are obliged to admit that we are 
still in a state of progress, and are not in a position to speak 
dogmatically, except with regard to a very small part of the 
branch to which our lives may be devoted. All our knowledge is 
progressive, year by year we are making further and further 
advances, and it would be folly to say that in any single department 
of science we have so settled and determined our facts and inferences 
that it is impossible to alter their position. All scientific 
men will admit this. No doubt we have certain principles as 
to which we may say that every advance in science has only 
tended to confirm them; but we know that many of the objections 
that have been raised against Divine Revelation are based on so- 
called facts connected with science that have as yet received 
very imperfect confirmation. I will not occupy your time by 
dilating on the general operations of this Institute, especially as 
we shall have before us to-night a paper on a subject that will 
interest a large portion of this audience, and in regard to which 
comparatively few of us know what we should like to know. The 
subject is, however, one so frequently referred to, that it is of 
extreme importance we should have the advantage of its elucidation 
by one so thoroughly competent as the author of the paper. I will, 
therefore, simply confine myself to moving the resolution I have read. 
Mr. H. W. Brisrow, F.R.S. (Senior Director of the Geological 
Survey of Great Britain).—In seconding the resolution just sub- 
