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the j'etir. I thiak I iiin very well qualified to proiiose this resolution, 

 inasmuch as I am sorry to say I can claim no share or very little share of 

 the honour thus conferred upon those mentioned in it. My time has been 

 so much occupied that I have not been able to attend many of the meetings 

 of the council ; still I know that a large number of members do devote 

 their time to the interests of the Society, and, therefore, I think they are 

 well entitled to our thanks, especially our able and invaluable friend, 

 Captain Francis Petrie (hear), who has the success of this Institute so much 

 at heart. (Applause.) 



Professor Gr. G. Stokes, M.A., D.C.L., F.R.S.— I have great pleasure in 

 seconding this resolution. I intended to have prefaced my remarks by 

 reading the last paragraph of the Report to which this resolution refers ; 

 but, as that has just been read by the Honorary Secretary, I will not 

 detain you by again doing so. In regard to many of our objects, I may> 

 perhaps, be permitted to say a few words respecting the recent progress of 

 science, or rather some of the branches of science, and to inquire, whether 

 there is anything in that progress which is contrary to what we have learnt 

 to regard as the teachings of Revelation ? I have purposely used the phrase 

 " some of the branches of science," for there are few men, if any, at the 

 present day who would be competent to speak upon all or even many of 

 those branches. Science has of late greatly extended itself in various 

 directions. There are two great divisions of science which you may, in the 

 first instance, consider ; I allude to the physical sciences, as they are called, 

 and the biological sciences. With regard to the latter I shall say nothing, 

 as my studies have not led me in that direction. In the few words I 

 propose to address to you, I shall confine myself to the physical branches ; 

 and I request that our Chairman will be so good as to give me notice, when 

 he thinks I am trespassing too long upon the time of the meeting ; because 

 I am aware that there is a prepared Address, which we are expecting to hear 

 read very shortly. If we go back for the last twenty years or so, I may 

 mention as perhaps one of the most striking advances that have been made 

 in science, especially as having some possible connection with subjects which 

 the Victoria Institute is more especially designed to consider, the use that 

 has been made of the spectroscope, I mean the application of that 

 instrument ; for, in point of fact, it has long been used, although it is only of 

 recent years that it has come into general employment. Here there are 

 certain applications about which I need not say anything, because they 

 do not bear upon our immediate subject ; but I would refer especially to 

 the information we obtain by its means regarding the constitution of the 

 heavenly bodies. It is now sixty or seventy years since Frauenhofer 

 pointed out, for the first time, that the different fixed stars have spectra of 

 their own,— that whereas the solar spectrum exhibits certain dark lines, the 

 spectra of the stars resemble it in this respect, but the dark lines they show 

 do not agree, or, at least, do not in all cases agree, with those exhibited by 

 the solar spectrum ; nevertheless, there is a general similarity in the charactei; 



