TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 127 
castle-on-Tyne, and presided over by the late Duke of Northumberland. Under 
the auspices of that good and enlightened nobleman, we then compte together 
much pecuniary aid for the advancement of Science ; and, including Ladies (who, 
however, were not then members, but visitors), our numbers were greater than on 
any occasion before or since at any place in the British Isles. I was then associated 
in duty with that eminent mathematician the late Dr. Peacock, afterwards Dean of 
Ely, who, with many of our leading members, has, alas! passed away. Those of 
us, however, who are left come again hither with a lively recollection of the kind 
reception we then met with, and therefore sanguinely anticipate that Newcastle 
and the Counties of the North of England will well sustain their former good name 
and high reputation. 
Tn 1838 this town had been so recently embellished by such new and beautiful 
architecture that, in our opening General Assembly, I spoke of the noble results of 
individual enterprise, genius, and taste which had associated the triumphs of art 
with those of manufacture and commerce, and combined the refinements of wealth 
with the most varied productions of industry, 
The words of the Latin poet, which I then quoted, have, indeed, in later years 
been rendered still more applicable :— 
** Hic portus alii effodiunt ; hic alta theatris 
Fundamenta locant alii, immanesque columnas 
Rupibus excidunt ; scenis decora alta futuris,” 
For, if I was then struck with the great works which this capital of the northen- 
most English counties had achieved since the early recollections of a boy at Durham 
School in the first years of this century, what is now my gratification and surprise 
when I look at the onward progress made between 1838 and 1863 in this centre of 
industry! In 1838 we were not enabled to reach our place of meeting by railroad 
from the south or from the north; but now the passenger flies across the Tyne by 
one of the noblest and most skilfully engineered of river-viaducts. Then, it is true, 
great and flourishing manufactories existed, and evidences of energy and high in- 
tellect abounded; but now among your townsmen there has arisen a man whose 
nius has thrown new light on the defence of nations, and whose talents and 
ingenuity have been so appreciated by the public, that the British Association 
could not have selected a more fitting President of their body. 
Twenty-five years ago your trade and commerce were, it is true, important; but 
our imports and exports, including those of North and South Shields and Sunder- 
ae have since then, as nearly as may be, trebled, and ships from the Tyne, the 
Wear, and the Tees now frequent the most distant regions of the globe. 
It is especially by this great extension of its influence and relations that New- 
castle-on Tyne has become an eminently suitable meeting-place for geographers 
and ethnologists ; and to this fitness of things, let me remind you, the Association 
has of late years adapted itself: for, when we last assembled here, this Section, of 
which I am proud to have been the founder, had no existence. 
When in 1838 I here took a retrospective view of the progress made by the 
British Association in the first seven years of its existence, it was natural’ that, 
with the strong desire with which I was imbued, I should have then expressed my 
regret that Geography had not hitherto received at our Meetings that amount of 
attention to which it is justly entitled. Referring to the progress then made by the 
Royal Geographical Society of London, when its members were a third part only of 
the present number, I expressed a hope that the great geographical problems which 
had been lately solved, and which remained to be worked out, might be brought 
regularly before the Association, and secure the application of some of those funds 
which had hitherto been exclusively appropriated to the advancement of other 
sciences. 
Steadily pursuing this idea, it was therefore a great satisfaction to me to succeed, 
after an interval of sixteen years, in establishing in the year 1854 this separate 
Section of Geography and Ethnology; and since that day I can truly say that this 
department of our Scientific Body has been most popular, and at the same time, I 
trust, eminently useful. 
Under these encouraging aspects, I will first call your attention to some of the 
