ADDRESS. lit 
Such is a concise view of the system at first laid down by the wisdom of 
our founders, and which, with some modifications, has produced the inestimable 
contents of our printed volumes. In practice the ‘‘suggestive Report” is 
often a paper contributed by some able investigator to some meeting of the 
Association, which produces a request from the body that he will pursue his 
researches with their sanction and assistance, and write a Report comple- 
mentary to his own suggestions. 
Again, although we did not profess to receive and publish individual re- 
searches, the number of these received at each meeting is very great; the 
merit of some of them so eminent, that they are authorized to be printed 
entire amongst the Reports; and the Notices and Abstracts of the remainder, 
which at first occupied a small proportional part of each volume, now occupy 
nearly half of it. 
I will now direct your attention to the principal objects to which our funds 
have been directed. 
To appreciate the value of an investigation by the money it costs, may ap- 
pear at first sight a most unworthy test, although it be a thoroughly British 
view of the subject. 
But there are undoubtedly a great number of most important inquiries in 
science that are arrested, not for want of men of zeal and ability to carry them 
out, but because from their nature they require an outlay of money beyond 
the reach of the labourers who ardently desire to give their time and thoughts 
to them, and because the necessity and value of the proposed investigation are 
wholly unappreciable by that portion of society who hold the purse-strings. 
But it is in the cases above alluded to of expensive investigation that the 
direct use and service of our body has been made the most manifest. The 
British Association holds its own purse-strings, and can also perfectly under- 
_ stand when they should be relaxed. Nay, more, by its influence and cha- 
racter, established by the disinterested labours and successful exertions of 
more than thirty years, it may be said to command the national funds; for 
the objects in aid of which Government assistance has been requested, have 
been so judiciously chosen, that such applications have very rarely been un- 
successful, but have been, on the contrary, most cordially acceded to. 
Indeed it may be observed, that from the period of the foundation of the 
Association the Government of this country has been extending its patronage 
of Science and the Arts. We may agree with the assertion of our founder, 
Sir David Brewster, in supposing that this change was mainly effected by the 
interference of this Association and by the writings and personal exertions of 
its members. 
For the above reasons it appears to me that by a concise review of the 
principal objects to which the funds of our body have been applied, and of 
_ those which its influence with the Government has forwarded, we obtain a 
measure of the most important services of the British Association. 
But in considering the investigations carried out by committees or indi- 
vidual members by the help of the funds of the Association, it must always 
be remembered that their labours, their time and thoughts, are all given 
gratuitously. 
One of the most valuable gifts to Science that has proceeded from our 
Association is the series of its printed Reports, now extended to thirty volumes. 
Yet these must not be supposed to contain the complete record even of the 
labours undertaken at the request and at the expense of the body. Many of 
these have been printed in the volumes of other societies, or in a separate 
form, Several, unhappily, remain in manuscript, excluded from the public 
by the great expense of publication, 
