410 
NATURE 
[ Sept. 2, 1886 
institutions at South Kensington and those of the great Uni- 
versities and their Collezes down to those of the schools and field- 
clubs in country towns. It has besides been an era of gigantic 
progress in original work and in publication—a progress so rapid 
that workers in every branch of study have been reluctantly 
obliged to narrow in more and more their range of reading and 
of effort to keep abreast of the advance in their several depart- 
ments. Lastly, these twenty-one years have been characterised 
as the ‘‘coming of age” of that great system of philosophy with 
which the names of three Englishmen—Darwin, Spencer, and 
Wallace—are associated as its founders. Whatever opinions 
one may entertain as to the sufficiency and finality of this philo- 
sophy, there can be no question as to its influence on scientific 
thought. On the one hand, it is inaccurate to compare it with 
so entirely different things as the discovery of the chemical ecle- 
ments and of the law of gravitation ; on the other, it is scarcely 
fair to characterise it as a mere ‘‘ confused development ” of the 
mind of the age. It is indeed a new attempt of science in its 
maturer years to grapple with those mysterious questions of 
origins which occupied it in the days of its infancy, and it is to 
be hoped that it may not, like the Titans of ancient fable, be 
hurled back from heavea, or, like the first mother, find the 
knowledge to which it aspires a bitter thing. In any case we 
should fully understand the responsibility which we incur when 
in these times of fuli-grown science we venture to deal with the 
great problem of origins, and should be prepared to find that in 
this field the new philosophy, like those which have preceded 
it, may meet with very imperfect success. The agitation of these 
subjects has already brought science into close relations, some- 
times friendly, so netimes hostile, it is to he hoped in the end 
helpful, with those great and awful questions of the ultimate 
destiny of humanity, and its relations to its Creator, which must 
always be nearer to the human heart than any of the achieve- 
ments of science on its own ground. In entering on such ques- 
tions we should proceed with caution and reverence, feeling that 
we are on holy ground, and that though, like Moses of old, we 
may be arined with all the learning of our time, we are in the 
presence of that which while it burns is not consumed ; of a 
mystery which neither observation, experiment, nor induction 
can ever fully solve. 
In a recent addre s, the late President of the Royal Society 
called attention to the fact thet, within the life-time of the older 
men of science of the present day, the greater part of the vast 
body of knowledge included in the modern sciences of physics, 
chemistry, biology, and geology has been accumulated, and the 
most important advances made in its application to such com- 
mon and familiar things as the railway, ocean navigation, the 
electric telegraph, electric lighting, the telephone, the germ- 
theory of disease, the use of anzesthetics, the processes of metal- 
lurgy, and the dyeing of fabrics. Even since the last meeting 
in this city much of this great work has been done, and has led 
to general results of the most marvellous kind. What at that 
ume could have appeared more chimerical than the opening up, 
by the enterprise of one British colony, of a shorter road to the 
East by way of the extreme West, realising what was happily 
called by Milton and Cheadle ‘‘ the new North-West Passage,” 
making Japan the next neighbour of Canada on the west, and 
offering to Britain a new way to her Eastern possessions ; or 
than the possibility of this Association holding a successful 
meeting on the other side of the Atlantic? We have now an 
invitation to meet in Australia, and may, if we please, pro- 
ceed thither by the Canadian Pacific Railway and its new 
lines of steamers, returning by the Suez Canal.! To-day this 
is quite as feasible as the Canadian visit would have been in 
1865. It is science that has thus brought the once widely 
separated parts of the world nearer to each other, and is break- 
ing down those geographical barriers which have separated the 
different portions of our widely extended British race. Its work 
in this is not yet complete. Its goal to-day is its starting-point 
to-morrow. It is as far as at any previous time from seeing the 
limit of its conquests, and every victory gained is but the open- 
ing of the way for a further advance. 
By its visit to Canada the British Association has asserted its 
Imperial character, and has consolidated the scientific interests 
of Her Majesty’s dominions, in advance of that great gathering 
of the industrial products of all parts of the Empire now on ex- 
hibition in London, and in advance of any political plans of 
“ 
= lie is expected that, on the completion of the whole of the connections 
of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the time from ocean to ocean may be 
reduced to 116 hours, and from London to Hong Kong to 27 days. 
Imperial federation.! There has even been a project before us 
for an International Scientific Convention, in which the great 
English Republic of America shall take part—a project the 
realisation of which was to some extent anticipated in the fusion 
of the members of the British and American Associations at 
Montreal and Philadelphia in 1884. As a Canadian, as a past 
President of the American Association, and now honoured with 
the Presidency of this Association, I may be held to represent 
in my own person this scientific union of the British Islands, of 
the various Colonies, and of the great Republic, which, what- 
ever the difficulties attending its formal accomplishment at pre- 
sent, is certain to lead to an actual and real union for scientific 
work. In furtherance of this I am glad to see here to-day in- 
fluential representatives of most of the British Colonies, of 
India, and of the United States. We welcome here also dele- 
gates from other countries, and though the barrier of language 
may at present prevent a larger union, we may entertain the 
hope that Britain, America, India, and the Colonies, working 
together in the interest of science, may ultimately render our 
English tongue the most general vehicle of scientific thought and 
discovery—a consummation of which I think there are, at present, 
many indications. 
But, while science marches on from victory to victory, its path 
is marked by the resting-places of those who have fought its 
battles.and assured its advance. In looking back to 1865 there 
rise before me the once familiar countenances of Phillips, Mur- 
chison, Lyell, Forbes, Jeffreys, Jukes, Rolleston, Miller, Spottis- 
woode, Fairbairn, Gassiot, Carpenter, and a host of others, 
present in full vigour at that meeting, but no more with us. 
These were veterans of science; but, alas! many then young 
and rising in fame are also numbered with the dead. It may be 
that before another Birmingham meeting many of us, the older 
members now, will also have passed away. But these men have 
left behind them ineffaceable monuments of their work, in which 
they still survive, and we rejoice to believe that, though dead to 
us, they live in that company of the great and good of all ages 
who have entered into that unseen Universe where all that is 
high and holy and beautiful must go on accumulating till the 
time of the restitution of all things. Let us follow their example 
and carry on their work, as God may give us power and oppor- 
tunity, gathering in precious stores of knowledge and of thought, 
in the belief that all truth is immortal, and must go on for ever 
bestowing blessings on mankind. Thus will the memory of the 
mighty dead remain to us as a power which, 
“* Tike a star, 
Beaco ns from the abode where the eternal are. 
I do not wish, however, to occupy your time longer with 
general or personal matters, but rather to take the opportunity 
afforded by this address to invite your attention to some topics 
of scientific interest. In attempting to do this, I must have 
before me the warning conveyed by Prof. Huxley, in the 
address to which I have already referred, that in our time 
science, like Tarpeia, may be crushed with the weight of the 
rewards bestowed on her. In other words, it is impossible for 
any man to keep pace with the progress of more than one limited 
branch of science, and it is equally impossible to find an audience 
of scientific men of whom anything more than a mere fraction 
can be expected to take an interest in any one subject. There 
is, however, some consolation in the knowledge that a speaker 
who is sufficiently simple for those who are advanced specialists 
in other departments, will of necessity be also sufficiently simple 
to be understood by the general public who are specialists in 
nothing. On this principle a geologist of the old school, 
accustomed to a great variety of work, may hope so to scatter 
his fire as to reach the greater part of the audience. In en- 
deavouring to secure this end, I have sought inspiration from 
that ocean which connects rather than separates Britain and 
America, and may almost be said to be an English sea—the 
North Atlantic. The geological history of this depression of 
the earth’s crust, and its relation to the continental masses 
which limit it, may furnish atheme at once generally intelligible 
and connected with great questions as to the structure and 
history of the earth, which have excited the attention alike of 
physicists, geologists, biologists, geographers, and ethnologists. 
Should I, in treating of these questions, appear to be somewhat 
abrupt and dogmatic, and to indicate rather than state the 
* I should note here, in connection with this, the valuable volume of 
“Canadian Ecenomics,” edited by Mr. D. A. P. Watt, which was one of 
the results of the Montreal meeting. 
