ADDRESS. Iv 



glected ; but there is room for both. It is sad to see the number of so-called 

 educated men who, travelling by railway, voyaging by steamboat, consult- 

 ing the almanac for the time of sunrise or full-moon, have not the most 

 elementary knowledge of a steam-engine, a barometer, or a quadrant ; and 

 Avho will listen with a half-confessed faith to the most idle predictions as 

 to weather or cometic influences, while they are in a state of crass igno- 

 rance as to the cause of the trade-winds or the form of a comet's path. 

 May we hope that the sHght infiltration of scientific studies, now happily 

 commenced, will extend till it occupies its fair space in the education of 

 the young, and that those who may be able learnedly to discourse on the 

 Eolic digamma will not be ashamed of knowing the principles on which the 

 action of an air-pump, an electrical machine, or a telescope depends, and vrill 

 not, as Bacon complained of his contemporaries, despise such knowledge as 

 something mean and mechanical. 



To assert that the great departments of Government should eneom-age 

 physical science may appear a truism, and yet it is but of late that it has 

 been seriously done ; now, the habit of consulting men of science on im- 

 portant questions of national interest is becoming a recognized practice, 

 and in a time, which may seem long to individuals, but is short in the 

 history of a nation, a more definite sphere of usefulness for national pur- 

 poses will, I have no doubt, be proAadcd for those dulj' qualified men Avho 

 may be content to give up the more tempting study of abstract science for 

 that of its practical applications. In this respect the lleport of the Kew 

 Committee for this year affords a subject of congratulation to those whom 

 I have the honour to address. The Kew Observatory, the petted child of 

 the British Association, may possibly become an important national establish- 

 ment ; and if so, while it will not, I trust, lose its character of a home for 

 untrammelled physical research, it will have siiperadded some of the functions 

 of the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade with a staff of skil- 

 ful and experienced observers. 



This is one of the results which the general growth of science, and the 

 labours of this Association in particular, have produced ; but I do not propose 

 on this occasion to recapitulate the special objects attained by the Association, 

 this has been amply done by several of my predecessors ; nor shall I confine 

 my address to the progress made in physical science since the time when 

 my most able and esteemed friend and predecessor addressed jou at Bir- 

 mingham. In the various reports and communications which will be read 

 at your 8ections, details of every step which has been made in science 

 since our last Meeting will be brought to your notice, and I have no doubt 

 fully and freely discussed. 



I purpose, with your kind permission, to submit to you certain A^ews of 

 what has -within a comparatively recent period been accomplished by science, 

 what have been the steps leading to the attained results, and what, as far as 

 we may fairly form an opinion, is the general character pervading modei-n 

 discovery. 



It seems to me that the object we have in view would be more nearly 

 approached, by each President, chosen as they are in succession as repre- 

 senting different branches of science, giving on these occasions either an 

 account of the progress of the particular branch of science he has ciiltivated, 

 when that is not of a very limited and special character, or enouncing his 

 own view of the general j)rogress of science ; and though this will necessarily 

 involve much that belongs to recent years, the confining a President to 

 a mere resume of what has taken place since our last Meeting would, I 



