Address of the President of the British Association. 255 



of Commons, by which communications are made to and from some 

 distant committee-room. As a specimen of the information conveyed 

 from the House is the following : — ' Committee has permission to sit 

 until five o'clock ;' and among the questions sent down from the com- 

 mittee are the following: — 'What is before the House?' ' Who is 

 speaking?' 'How long before the House divides?' 



" Even if I possessed in myself, or had collected from others, the 

 materials for the most rapid sketch of the progress of other sciences, 

 the time would fail me in the attempt to convey it to you. I abstain 

 from any reference to geology, principally from my own ignorance of 

 its later progress. I can as little endeavor to bring before the Associa- 

 tion the discoveries during the past year by which science has minis- 

 tered to the arts or to commerce ; yet I cannot leave altogether un- 

 named—though I can hardly do more than name—the discovery of 

 the gun-cotton, and the application of electricity to the smelting of 

 copper. * 



"For that process, I believe, a patent has been recently taken out. 

 As yet, perhaps, sufficient time has not elapsed to test its full value. 

 We all know that an experiment succeeds perfectly in the case of a 

 model, or in a laboratory, which may not succeed so perfectly when 

 the miniature steam-engine, for example, is extended to its ordinary 

 size in a manufactory, or when the operation is transferred from ounces 

 to tons. But if the hopes, expectations, and confidence of the discov- 

 erers be realized, their plan will be of the greatest value to this country, 

 and of even greater proportionate value to some of the Queen's most 

 important colonies. It has been said that 10,000 tons of copper were 

 sent last year from Australia, to be smelted in England ; and that they 

 produced no more than 1,600 tons of copper. It is evident, there- 

 fore, that, if by this process of smelting by electricity, the refuse, 

 namely, 8,400, can be left on the spot, 8,400 tons of shipping are lib- 

 erated for other purposes of commerce between the colony and the 

 mother country ; and the saving of coal in England, an object not 

 wholly devoid of interest, is immense. 



"From the sciences cultivated, extended, or encouraged, I advert to 

 a consideration of the Association itself. The importance of these 

 meetings is national. Their direct results have been eminently bene- 

 ficial to science ; their indirect effects in uniting men of the same pur- 

 s «it from different parts of our common country, and not .ess in bring- 

 ln g together those whom seas and empires divide, but whom the same 

 ze *l for knowledge happily associates as in this place, are equally ^ro- 

 »*rkable. Those antipathies (I hardly use too strong a word) wh ch 

 °"ce separated us from our brethren in other realms— and from wnicn 

 ev en men of science were not always exempt— are, year by year, 

 vanishing ; and we have met cordially on common ground to assist ana 

 encourage one another in the pursuit of objects honorable and service- 



a °le to the whole family of man. „ 00 ,; n ^ h* 



. "While, however, this effect is produced, whether our rnee .ngs be 

 «■ Oxford or in Cambridge, in Edinburgh or in Dublin ,n L verpoo or 

 » Cork-o r again whether they be in England or tn Genoa, m M.Ian 

 or m Naples-let us not forget, that if we raise the standard of science 

 ' n our own country, we raise the national character also, and its just in- 

 flue °ce in other countries; and that while individual benevolence is 



