A D D E E S S 



OF 



WILLIAM B. CARPENTER, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., 



PRESIDED. 



My Loeds, Labies, and Gentlemen, 



Thiett-sii years have now elapsed since at the first and (I regret to say) 

 the only Meeting of this Association held in Bristol, — which Ancient City 

 followed immediately upon our National Universities in giving it a welcome, 

 — I enjoyed the privilege which I hold it one of the most valuahle functions 

 of these Annual assemblages to bestow ; that of coming into personal relation 

 with those distinguished Men whose names are to every cultivator of Science 

 as " household words," and the light of whose brilliant example, and the 

 warmth of whose cordial encouragement are the most precious influences by 

 which his own aspirations can be fostered and directed. Under the Presi- 

 dency of the Marquis of Lansdowne, with Conybeare and Prichard as Yice- 

 Presidents, with Vernon Harcourt as General Secretary, and John Phillips 

 as Assistant Secretary, were gathered together Whewell and Peacock, James 

 Forbes and Sir W. Rowan Hamilton, Murchison and Sedgwick, Buckland and 

 De la Beche, Henslow and Daubeny, Roget, Richardson, and Edward Eorbes, 

 with many others, perhaps not less distinguished, of whom my own recollec- 

 tion is less vivid. 



In his honoured old age, Sedgwick stiU retains, in the Academic home of 

 his life, all his pristine interest in whatever hears on the advance of the 

 Science he has adoraed as well as enriched ; and Phillips still cultivates 

 ~vvith all his old enthusiasm the congenial soil to which he has been trans- 

 planted. But the rest, — our fathers and elder brothers, — "Where are 

 they ? " It is for us of the present generation to show that they live in our 

 lives ; to carry forward the work which they commenced ; and to transmit 

 the influence of their example to our own successors. 



There is one of these great men, whose departure from among us since last 

 we met claims a special notice, and whose life — full as it was of years and 

 honours — we should have all desired to see prolonged for a few months, could 

 its feebleness have been unattended with suifering. For we should all then 

 have sympathized with Murchison, in the delight with which he would have 

 received the intelligence of the safety of the friend in whose scientific labours 

 and personal welfare he felt to the last the keenest interest. That this in- 

 telligence, which our own Expedition for the relief of Livingstone would have 



