6 REPOET — 1886. 



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 breaking 

 down those geographical barriers which have separated the different por- 

 tions 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 opening of the way for a farther 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 exhibition in London, and in advance of 

 any political plans of Imperial fedei'ation.' 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 repre- 

 sent in my own person this scientific union of the British Islands, of 

 the various Colonies, and of the great Republic, which, whatever the 

 difficulties attending its formal accomplishment at present, is certain 

 to lead to an actual and real union for scientific work. In further- 

 ance of this I am glad to see here to-day influential representatives 

 of most of the British Colonies, of India, and of the United States. 

 We welcome here also delegates from other countries, and though the 

 barrier of language may at present prevent a larger union, we may enter- 

 tain 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 indica- 

 tions. 



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, Murchison, Lyell, Forbes, Jeffreys, 

 Jukes, Rolleston, Miller, Spottiswoode, 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 



' I should note here, in connection with this, the valuable volume of Canadian 

 Economics, which was one of the results of the Montreal meeting. 



