210 Notes and Comments. 
taking part in excursions or in debates. Among them was 
Sir Henry Howorth; like the holly, evergreen, and fairly 
bristling with sharp witticisms and good humour. He had 
aparently forgotten his Glacial Nightmare and his Flood, his 
Mammoth and his Mongols; and his charming personality 
and fund of stories were much appreciated. And, of course, 
there were the ladies, very many, though not plenty of them. 
Like the British Association, the Congress concluded with the 
usual ‘ bread and butter meeting ’ where everybody was thanked 
for everything, and all said nice things about each other. 
FAITH. 
One prominent feature of the meetings was the great faith 
with which the members drank in all the wisdom that flowed 
from the lecturers and the lips of the guides on the excursions. 
Curious geological phenomena—explained in curious ways— 
were never questioned; extraordinary dates and weird 
descriptions given to specimens in the old buildings visited 
were apparently swallowed as though they had been camels. 
We missed the familiar and pardonable, though sometimes 
awkward ‘ How do you know ?’ and ‘ Why ?’ that we get in 
Yorkshire. 
THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 
The President, the Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing, the well-known 
authority on Crustacea, certainly gave a surprise and caused 
some concern by his address on ‘ Thoughts that breathe and 
words that burn.’ He began with the anecdote of the man 
going to Bagdad who asked a skull by the wayside, ‘ How 
came you here, my friend ?’ to which the skull replied, ‘ By 
talking too much.’ Should an antiquarian a thousand years 
hence light upon this narrative he must not infer that in our 
epoch skulls without brains retained a limited power of vocali- 
sation. This warning applies to a scientific audience as 
much as any other, in proof of which opinions are continually 
changing, and therefore absolute freedom is necessary for 
scientific expression. To win sympathy for this claim to full 
liberty of conscience Mr. Stebbing quoted Sir Thomas Moore, 
whose life was forfeited because he quietly clung to the opinion 
in which he had been educated. How men change their 
minds on vital questions, with results which influence the 
world for ages, was illustrated by various examples, and he 
pointed out that it was no refutation of an argument to cast 
stones at the speaker, as at the devout Syrian who was tried 
for his religious faith. It was, moreover, unfair to forcibly 
interrupt an argument midway because one disliked the 
conclusion to which it was leading. On one side one had 
multitudes incessantly and fervidly proclaiming their opinions, 
and on the other, assemblages who, by holding their tongues, 
averted needless obloquy. 
Naturalist, 
