ADDRESS 
BY 
THE REV. R. WILLIS, M.A., F.R.S., 
Jacksonian Professor, &c, 
GENTLEMEN OF THE British Assocration,—I have the honour to announce to 
you that we are now opening the Thirty-second Meeting of the British Asso- 
ciation, and are for the third time assembled in this University. 
At its first coming hither in 1833 its organization was scarce completed, its 
first Meeting having been devoted to explanations, discussions, and allotment 
of work to willing labourers ; its second Meeting, to the reception of the first 
instalment of those admirable preliminary Reports which served as the founda- 
tion of its future labours, and to the division of scientific communications to 
the Sectional Committees. 
But it was at Cambridge that the original plan of the Association bore fruit, 
by the receipt of the first paper which contained the results of experiments 
instituted expressly at the request of the Association. The success of the 
Association was now confirmed by the number of compositions and annual 
subscriptions paid in, and by the help of these funds a most important measure 
was introduced, namely, the practice of granting, in aid of philosophical 
researches to be undertaken by individuals or committees at the request of 
the Association, sums of money to meet the outlay required for apparatus or 
other expenses, which could not be asked from persons who were otherwise 
willing to devote their time to the advancement of science. It was at Cam- 
bridge that the importance and authority of the Association had become so 
manifest, that the first of its applications for Government assistance towards 
scientific objects was immediately complied with by a grant of £500 to reduce 
the Greenwich Observations of Bradley and Maskelyne. At the third Meeting 
improvements were made in the distribution of the Sciences to the Sections, 
and a Section of Statistics added. The only change in this respect that was 
subsequently found necessary was the establishment of a separate Section for 
Mechanical Science applied to the Arts, in 1837. The employment of alpha~ 
betical letters to distinguish the Sections had been introduced in 1835. 
I have said enough to claim for the Cambridge Meeting the honour of com- 
“ha the development of the Association; and I may be permitted to quote 
m our fourth Report the gratifying assurance, that so obvious was the 
utility of the proposed undertaking, that, in its very infancy, there were found 
several distinguished individuals, chiefly from the University of Cambridge, 
who volunteered to undertake some of the most valuable of those Reports 
which appeared in the first volume of the Proceedings. 
» With a mixture of regret and shame I confess, that although my name is 
enrolled in the honourable list of those who undertook Reports, it will be 
d2 
