TEANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 627 



actually wrote, in 1800, a pamphlet in defeuce of ' phlogiston,' we ought not to he 

 surprised when young people, though horn a century later, fail to perceive at once 

 the full significance of facts to which they are introduced for the first time. At 

 the outset you cannot reasonahly expect a young student both to observe accu- 

 rately and infer justly. These two things must be kept separate at first, and for 

 this reason among others I believe that attempts to make young students verify 

 for themselves the fundatcental propositions of cliemistry will not be successful. 

 One has only to trace the origin of one's own convictions in reference to any 

 important fact or principle to perceive that they very seldom spring into existence 

 suddenly, but almost always commence in vagueness and hesitation, actjuiring 

 consistency and solidity only as the result of accumulated experience. 



I will not pretend to determine what may be inchided within the wide circle 

 of tlie functions of the British Association ; but I think I cannot be mistaken in 

 assuming that the advancement of science is dependent in no small degree upon 

 the provision for the efficient teaching of science. I have traced an outline of 

 what has been done in the past, and have endeavoured to show in what respects 

 I think we are deficient at the present time. No matter how ardent may be the 

 aspirations, how earnest the endeavours of the few, progress will be slow unless 

 they are sustained by the sympathy of the many. On one principle the public 

 must surely insist, that only those shall be allowed to teach who know. 



I 



The following Reports and Papers were read : — 



1. Export of the Committee for the investigation of the action of Light on the 

 Sydracids of Halogens in presence of Oxygen. — See Reports, p. 89. 



2. Second Report of the Committee on the Bihliograpliy of Solution. 



See Reports, p. 54. 



3. Second Report of the Committee for investigating the Nature of Solution. 



See Reports, p. 93. 



I 



4. Second Report of the Committee for investigating the Influence of Silicon 

 on the properties of Steel. — See Reports, p. 69. 



5. On the Study of Mineralogy . By T. Steeey Hunt, LL.D., F.R.S. 



§ 1. Our knowledge of the inorganic kingdom, as seen in this earth, may be 

 comprehended under geography, geology and mineralogy ; the latter in its wider 

 sense including all non-organised forms of matter, with their whole dynamical ' 

 (physical) and chemical history. In didactic language, however, mineralogy is 

 limited to the study of native species, and includes a knowledge alike of their 

 external characters and their chemical relations. The so-called natural-history 

 method in mineralogy, disregarding these latter, is based exclusively on specific 



' We use the words dynamics and dynamical in the sense in which they are 

 onoployed by Thomson and Tait in their treatise on Natural PMlosopliy, wherein all 

 those manifestations of force which are neither chemical nor vital (biotic), including, 

 besides ordinary motion, the phenomena of sound, temperature, radiant energy, elec- 

 tricity and magnetism, are embraced under the general title of dynamics, correspond- 

 ing to what in popular language is designated Physics. Otlier eminent students of 

 our time have sanctioned this use of the term dynamics, in which they were to a 

 certain extent anticipated by Berzelius, who in 1842 included electricity, magnetism, 

 light and heat— all of which he regarded as affections of matter, and compared 

 their phenomena with those of sound — under the common term of Dynamides. (See 

 Hunt, Mineral Physiology and Physiograj}hy, p. 13.) 



s s 2 



