ADDRESS 
OF 
JOSEPH D. HOOKER, F.RBS., 
D.C.L. OXON.; LL.D. CANTAB.; &c. 
PRESIDENT. 
My Lorps, Lavies, anp GenrLEMEN, 
Turrty years will to-morrow have elapsed since I first attended a Meeting 
of the British Association ; it was the one which opened at Newcastle on the 
20th of August, 1838. On that occasion, the Council of the Association 
resolved to recommend to Her Majesty’s Government the despatch of an 
expedition to the Antarctic regions, under the command of Captain James 
Ross; and it was from Newcastle that I wrote to my friends announcing my 
resolve to accompany it, in whatever capacity I could obtain a situation 
amongst its officers. It was thus that my scientific career was first shaped ; 
and it is to this expedition, which was one of the very earliest results of the 
labours of the British Association, that I am indebted for the honour you 
have conferred upon me, in placing me in your President’s chair. 
If I now look back with pride to those immediately following years, when 
I had a share, however small, in the discovery of the Antarctic Continent, 
the Southern Magnetic Pole, the Polar Barrier, and the Ice-clad Volcanos 
of Victoria Land, I do so also with other and far different feelings. Thirty 
years, as statisticians tell us, represent the average duration of human life; 
I need not say, that, as measured by the records of the British Association, 
a human lifetime is far shorter than this; for of the fourteen officers who 
presided over us in 1838, but two remain, your former President and devoted 
adherent for thirty-five years, Sir Roderick Murchison, who delivered the 
opening address on that occasion, and whose health, I regret to add, prevents 
his attendance at this Meeting; and your faithful and evergreen Secretary, 
Professor Phillips, upon whose presence here I congratulate both you and 
him. 
Again, looking back beyond thirty years ago in the pages of your Records, 
I find those to have been halcyon years for Presidents, when the preparation 
and delivery of the Addresses devolved upon the Treasurer, Secretary, or 
other officer than the President; and that in fact Presidential Addresses 
date from the first Meeting after that at Newcastle. Of late years these 
Addresses have been regarded, if not as the whole duty of the President, 
certainly as his highest; for your sakes, as well as for my own, I wish this 
were not so; both because there are amongst your officers so many men far 
more competent than I am, and because I believe that the responsibility 
which the preparation of these Addresses entails, disadvantageously limits 
your choice of Presidents. The impression is very prevalent that the Address 
should either be a scientific tour de force, philosophical and popular, or a 
résumé of the progress of one or more important branches of science; and 
this view of the duty has greatly embarrassed me, inasmuch as I am unable 
ee | 
