Ivi KEPUllT — 1860. 



veutiu'C Antli difflclcncc to think, limit his means of usefuhics>s, and render 

 his discourse rather an annual register than an instructive essay. 



I need not dwell on the common-place but yet important topics of the 

 material advantages resulting from the application of science ; I -will address 

 myself to what, in my humble judgment, arc the lessons we have learned 

 and the probable prospects of improved natural knowledge. 



One word will give you the key to what I am about to discourse on ; that 

 word is continuiii/, no new word, and used in no new sense, but perhaps 

 applied more generally than it has hitherto been. We shall see, unless I am 

 much mistaken, that the development of observational, experimental, and 

 even deductive knowledge is cither attained l)y steps so extremely small as 

 to form really a continuous ascent ; or, when distinct results apparently 

 separate from any coordinate phenomena have been attained, that then, by 

 the subsequent progi'css of science, intermediate links have been discovered 

 uniting the apparently segregated instances with other more familiar 

 phenomena. 



Thus the more we investigate, the more we find that in existing phe- 

 nomena graduation from the like to the seemingly unlike prevails, and in 

 the changes which take place in time, gradual progress is, and apparently 

 must be, the course of nature. 



Let me now endeavour to apply this view to the recent progress of some of 

 the more prominent branches of science. 



In Astronomy, from the time when the earth was considered a flat plain 

 bounded by a flat ocean, — when the sun, moon, and stars Avere regarded as 

 lanterns to illuminate this plain,- — each successive discovery has brought with 

 it similitudes and analogies between this earth and many of the objects of 

 the universe with which our senses, aided by instruments, have made us 

 acquainted. I pass, of course, over those discoveries which have established the 

 Copernicausystemas applied to our sun, its attendant planets, audtheirsatellites. 

 The proofs, hoM-ever, that gravitation is not confined to our solar system, 

 but pervades the imiverse, have received many confiimations by tlie labours 

 of Members of this Association ; I may name those who have held the 

 office of President, Lord Eosse, Lord AVrottesley, and f^ir J. Herschel, the 

 latter having devoted special attention to the orbits of double stars, the 

 former to those probably more recent systems called nebula?. Double stars 

 seem to be orbs analogous to oiu* own sun and revolving round their common 

 centre of gravity in a conic-section curve, as do the jilanets with which we 

 are more intimately acquainted ; but the nebida; present more difficulty, and 

 some doubt has been expressed whether gravitation, such as we consider it, 

 acts with those bodies (at least those exhibiting a spiral form) as it does with 

 us ; possibly some other modifying influence may exist, our present ignorance 

 of which gives rise to the apparent diificulty. There is, however, another 

 class of observations quite recent in its importance, and which has formed a 

 special subject of contribution to the Eeports and Transactions of this 

 Association ; I allude to those on Meteorites, at which oiu- lamented Member, 

 and to many of us our vahied friend, Prof. Baden Powell assiduously laboured, 

 for investigations into which a Committee of this Association is formed, and 

 a series of star-charts for enabling observers of shooting-stars to record their 

 observations was laid before the last Meeting of the Association by Mr. (ilaisher. 

 It would occupy too much of your time to detail the eff'orts of Be.ssel, 

 Sehwinke, the late Sir J. Lubbock, and others, as applied to the formation of 

 star-charts for aichng the observation of meteorites which Mr. Alexander 

 Herschel; Mr. Brayley, Mr, Sorby, and others arc noAv studying. 



