kx KEPORT — 1873. 



obtained (we will hope) a few months later, should have been brought 

 to us through the generosity of one, and the enterprising ability — may I not 

 use our peculiarly English word, the " pluck " — of another of our American 

 brethren, cannot but be a matter of national regret to us. But let us bury 

 that regret in the common joy which both Nations feel in the result; and 

 while we give a cordial welcome to Mr. Stanley, let us glory in the prospect 

 now opening, that England and America wiU co-operate in that noble object 

 which — far more than the discovery of the Sources of the Nile — our great 

 Traveller has set before himself as his true mission, the Extinction of the 

 Slave Trade. 



At the last Meeting of this Association, I had the pleasure of being able 

 to announce, that T had received from the First Lord of the Admiralty a 

 favourable reply to a representation I had ventured to make to him, as to the 

 importance of prosecuting on a more extended scale the course of inquiry 

 into the Physical and Biological conditions of the Deep Sea, on which, with 

 my coUeagaes Prof. Wyvillc Thomson and Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, I had been 

 engaged for the three preceding years. That for which I had asked was a 

 Circumna\'igating Expedition of at least three years' duration, provided with 

 an adequate Scientific Staff, and with tlie most complete Equipment that our 

 experience could devise. The Council of the Eoyal Society having been 

 led by the encouraging tenor of the answer I had received, to make 

 a formal Application to this effect, the liberal arrangements of the Go- 

 vernment have been carried out under the advice of a Scientific Com- 

 mittee which included Bepresentatives of this Association. H. M. ship 

 ' Challenger,' a vessel in every way suitable for the purpose, is now being 

 fitted out at Sheerness ; the Command of the Expedition is intrusted to 

 Captain Nares, an Officer of whose high qualifications I have myself the 

 fullest assurance ; while the Scientific charge of it will be taken by my 

 excellent friend Prof. Wyville Thomson, at whose suggestion it was that 

 these investigations were originally commenced, and whose zeal for the 

 efficient prosecution of them is shown by his relinquishment for a time of the 

 important Academic position he at present fills. It is anticipated that the 

 Expedition will sail in November next; and I feel sure that the good wishes 

 of all of you will go along with it. 



The confident anticipation expressed by my predecessor, that for the utili- 

 zation of the total Eclipse of the Sun then impending, -our Government would 

 " exercise the same wise liberality as heretofore in the interests of Science," 

 has been amply fulfilled. An Eclipse-Expedition to India was organized at 

 the charge of the Home Government, and placed under the direction of Mr. 

 Lockyer ; the Indian Government contributed its quota to the work ; and a 

 most valuable body of results was obtained, of which, with those of the pre- 

 vious year, a Beport is now being prepared under the direction of the Council 

 of the Astronomical Society. 



It has been customary with successive occupants of this Chair, distin- 

 guished as Leaders in their several divisions of the noble Army of Science, to 

 open the proceedings of the Meetings over which they respectively presided, 

 with a Discourse on some aspect of Nature in her Belation to Man. But 

 I am not aware that any one of them has taken up the other side of the 

 inquiry, — that which concerns Man as the "Interpreter of Nature;" 

 and I have therefore thought it not inappropriate to lead you to the con- 

 sideratiou of the Mental processes, by which are formed those fundamental 

 conceptions of Matter and Eorce, of Cause and Effect, of Law and Order, 

 which furnish the basis of all scientific reasoning, and constitute the Phi- 



