438 
and it is confidently anticipated that quite 2500 people 
will take out tickets for the meeting. This great influx of 
strangers has tasked the available accommodation in 
Aberdeen, and, as might be expected, the charges in hotels 
and lodging-houses are somewhat exorbitant. 
Of foreigners who are to be present one of the most 
distinguished is Prof. O. C. Marsh, the well-known Ameri- 
can paleontologist, who. it is expected, will take part in 
the proceedings of both Cand D. Others are the Abbé 
Renard of Brussels, Dr. Max Schuster of Vienna, Dr. 
von Dechen of Bonn, and Prof. Radlkofer of Munich. 
It is expected that Mr. Im Thurn, the naturalist, who 
recently ascended Mount Roraima in British Guiana, will 
be able to be here, and tell personally of his ascent and 
its important results. 
Of the excursions, that to Balmoral on Saturday is 
evidently the favourite, and there will be considerable 
competition to be included among the 150. The Earl of 
Crawford has for the same day invited sixty members to 
visit Dunecht, where the observatory will be inspected, 
and where the archzeologists will be shown the “ Barnekin 
of Dunecht.” The Earl of Crawford also contributed 
several very valuable and interesting objects to a fine 
exhibition of antiquities, old books and manuscripts, that 
is being arranged. Among the expeditions arranged for 
Thursday the 17th, is one specially for geologists, to 
Portsoy; and for the same day the Rev. W. Gordon 
invites a party of naturalists to Braemar. 
Among the local establishments which will be open to 
the inspection of visitors are several of the great granite 
works for which Aberdeen is so famous. 
Anothex exhibition of special interest, arranged by the 
Scottish Geographical Society, will consist of Scottish 
maps, including some 150 different maps, atlases, guides, 
and special topographical works. 
If one may judge from the present appearance of the 
weather, the meteorological conditions promise to be 
favourable, and, if so, the meeting will be sure to be 
successful, so far as pleasuring is concerned, while the 
discussions that have been arranged for the Sections A 
and B are likely to give it considerable scientific im- 
portance. 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY THE RIGHT Hon. SIR 
PLAYFAIR, K.C.B., M.P., F.R.S., PRESIDENT 
LYON 
I. Visit to Canada.—Our last meeting at Montreal was a 
notable event in the life of the British Association, and even 
marked a distinct epoch in the history of civilisation. It was 
by no mere accident that the constitution of the Association 
enabled it to embrace all parts of the British Empire. Science 
is. truly catholic, and is bounded only by the universe. In rela- 
tion to our vast empire, science, as well as literature and art, are 
the common possession of all its varying people. The United 
Kingdom is limited to 120,800 square miles, inhabited by 35 
millions of people ; but the empire as a whole has 84 millions 
of square miles, with a population of 305 millions. To federate 
such vast possessions and so teeming a population into a political 
unit is a work only to be accomplished by the labours and per- 
sistent efforts of perhaps several generations of statesmen. The 
federation of its science is a subject of less dimensions well 
within the range of experiment. No part of the British Empire 
was more suited than Canada to try whether her science could 
be federated with our science. Canada has lately federated dis- 
tinct provinces, with conflicting interests arising from difference 
of races, nationalities, and religions. Political federation is not 
new in the history of the world, though it generally arises as a 
consequence of war, It was war that taught the Netherlands to 
federate in 1619. It was war which united the States in 
America ; federated Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, and 
unified Italy. But Canada formed a great national life out of 
petty provincial existences in a time of profound peace. This 
evolution gave an immense impulse to her national resources. 
The Dominion still requires consolidation in its vast extent, and 
applied science is rapidly effecting it. Canada, with its great 
expanse of territory, nearly as large as the United States, is 
being knit together by the iron bands of railways from the Gulf 
NATURE 
[ Sept. 10, 1885 
of St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean, so that the fertile lands of 
Ontario, Manitoba, Columbia, and the North-Western terri- 
tories will soon be available to the world. Still practical science 
has much to accomplish. England and France, with only one- 
fifth the fertile area of Canada, support 80 millions of people, 
while Canada hasa population not exceeding 5 millions, 
A less far-seeing people than the Canadians might have 
invited the applied science which they so much require. But 
they knew that without science there are no applications. They 
no doubt felt with Emerson— 
‘* And what if Trade sow cities 
Like shells along the shore, 
And thatch with towns the prairie broad 
With railways ironed o'er: 
They are but sailing foam-bells 
Along Thought's causing stream, 
And take their shape and sun-colour 
From him that sends the dream.” 
So it was witha far-reaching foresight that the Canadian Govern- 
ment invited the British Association for the Advancement of 
Science to meet in Montreal. The inhabitants of Canada 
received us with open arms, and the science of the Dominion 
and that of the United Kingdom were welded. We found in 
Canada, as we had every reason to expect, men of manly and 
self-reliant character, who loved not less than we did the old 
home from which they had come. Among them is the same 
healthiness of political and moral life, with the same love of 
truth which distinguishes the English people. Our great men 
are their great men: our Shakspeare, Milton, and Burns belong 
to them as much as to ourselves ; our Newton, Dalton, Faraday, 
and Darwin are their men of science as much as they are ours. 
Thus a common possession and mutual sympathy made the 
meeting in Canada a successful effort to stimulate the progress of 
science, while it established, at the same time, the principle that 
all people of British origin—and I would fain include our cousins 
in the United States—possess a common interest in the intel- 
lectual glories of their race, and ought, in science at least, to 
constitute part and parcel of a common empire, whose heart may 
beat in the small islands of the northern seas, but whose blood 
circulates in all her limbs, carrying warmth to them and bringing 
back vigour to us. Nothing can be more cheering to our 
Association than to know that many of the young communities 
of English-speaking people all over the globe—in India, China, 
Japan, the Straits, Ceylon, Australia, New Zealand, the Cape— 
have founded scientific societies in order to promote the growth 
of scientific research. No doubt science, which is only a form 
of truth, is one in all lands, but still its unity of purpose and 
fulfilment received an important practical expression by our visit 
to Canada. This community of science will be continued by the 
fact that we have invited Sir William Dawson, of Montreal, to 
be our next President at Birmingham. 
Il. Science and the State.—I cannot address you in Aberdeen 
without recollecting that when we last met in this city our 
President was a great prince. The just verdict of time is that, 
high as was his royal rank, he has a far nobler claim to our 
regard as a lover of humanity in its widest sense, and especially 
as a lover of those arts and sciences which do so much to adorn 
it. On September 14, 1859, I sat on this platform and listened 
to the eloquent address and wise counsel of the Prince Consort. 
At one time a member of his household, it was my privilege to 
co-operate with this illustrious prince in many questions relating 
to the advancement of science. I naturally, therefore, turned 
to his presidential address to see whether I might not now con- 
tinue those counsels which he then gave with all the breadth 
and comprehensiveness of his masterly speeches. I found, as I 
expected, a text for my own discourse in some pregnant remarks 
which he made upon the relation of science to the State. They 
are as follows :—‘* We may be justified in hoping . . . that the 
Legislature and the State will more and more recognise the 
claims of science to their attention, so that it may no longer 
require the begging-box, but speak to the State like a favoured 
child to its parent, sure of his paternal solicitude for its welfare ; 
that the State will recognise in science one of its elements of 
strength and prosperity, to foster which the clearest dictates of 
self-interest demand.” 
This opinion, in its broadest sense, means that the relations 
of science to the State should be made more intimate because 
the advance of science is needful to the public weal. 
The importance of promoting science as a duty of statecraft 
was well enough known to the ancients, especially to the Greeks 
and Arabs, but it ceased to be recognised in the dark ages, and 
