TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 139 



Such results are not necessary ; witness the case of the Lowell Mills in America, 

 and of Bradford in Yorkshire, where the numher of illegitimate bh-ths scarcely ex- 

 ceed the average. The means of amendment are to be found in the promotion of 

 family life, especially by leaving the wife and mother to attend to her domestic 

 duties, which will promote family happiness, increase juvenile health, and decrease 

 juvenile mortality. For this purpose also the improvement of education is much 

 needed. Both these means would also tend to decrease illegitimacy. 



The legislature might continue to direct the labour and education of minors in 

 additional fields of employment. Employers of labour might add to these bene- 

 ficial results by not engaging married women, and by judicious ai'raugements for 

 the benefit of their unmarried female hands. 



The paper was illustrated by detailed statistical Tables, 



a. 



MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



Address hy the President, Thomas Hawksley, V.P. Inst. C.E., F.G.S. 



The subject matter of the department of the British Association over which I 

 have on this occasion been called to preside is that of Mechanics ; and although, 

 properly speaking, this department embraces within its confines the whole of the 

 vast range of mechanical philosophy, extending from the infinitely great of the 

 universe, down to the infinitely small of the ultimate atom, yet, as I apprehend, 

 it is our more immediate pm-pose to limit our inquiries for the most part, if not 

 altogether, to those branches of Statics and Dynamics which are or may be 

 employed for the realisation of so-caUed "practical ends," I now ofler for conside- 

 ration a few thoughts with regard to the unhappy necessity which the events of 

 the last few years have only too sadly established, for devoting much of the science 

 and skill of the members of the Association to the defence of the homes of the people 

 of this great nation. Whatever may have been the advancement which civilized 

 eople have made iu the arts of peace, it is only too evident that those people 

 ave even outstripped themselves in advancing the arts of destruction. We have 

 seen in the great internal contention of our American brethren, and still later in 

 the struggle in which several of the most important states of Europe have engaged, 

 that war is no longer carried on by means of mere animal courage and brute 

 force. On the contrary, we perceive, much to om* amazement, I believe, that the 

 highest branches of mechanical science and the most refined processes and opera- 

 tions of the mechanical arts are resorted to by the modern warrior for the purposes 

 of oftence and defence ; and we are taught by the logic of facts that the modem 

 soldier must cease to remain a passive machine, but, on the contrary, must hence- 

 forth be trained as a skilled labourer, if not, indeed, even as a skilled artisan. At the 

 present moment the defences of this country are in a most unsatisfactory condition. 

 Many endeavours have been made, and much money, reckoned by millions, has 

 been expended, for the most part uselessly, in endeavom-s to secm-e our coasts 

 against the attacks of a foreign enemy. Forts have been erected where an adver- 

 sary woidd never seek to land. Ships of an enormous size, and carrying enormous 

 armaments, have been consti-ucted, which can neither sail on shallow waters, nor 

 safely encounter a hurricane in deeper ones, which, with vast mechanical power 

 on board, can yet not carry a sufficient quantity of coal to enable them to find 

 their way to, and act as protectors of, our colonies, and which, for the same reason, 

 are wholly unable to convey our merchantmen to those distant climes, without a 

 safe communication with which the trade and commerce of England must be anni- 

 hilated. Arsenals have been enlarged, if not constructed, in situations in which 

 they can only be secured from an enemy's fire by fortifications which it will 

 require an additional army to man. Guns, each one larger or more elaborate 

 than the last, have been invented and constructed and tried, and floating castles, 

 each one heavier and uglier and more unmanageable and more useless, except for 

 special applications, than the former one, have been built and cast upon the waters 

 to resist them, and yet nearly all ua,val and military oflicers acknowledge that this 



