61 REPORT — 187.2. 



whicli they regard as Public, with suoh advice as to the best mode of attaining 

 them as maj^ seem necessary ; and that before eacli annual meeting they should 

 ascertain from the Government what progress has been made towards the attain- 

 ment of those objects, publishing the result in their Proceedings. 



The author disclaims any wish to bring the Association into collision with the 

 Government. He does not believe the above measures woidd have that eit'ect ; and 

 lie sees no other mode of bringing forcibly before the Government, in a practical 

 form, those great wants of science which State resources alone can suppl)'. 



lie next proposes the following tests by which to distinguish Public Science for 

 the purpose of classification: — (1) Continuity; (2) Probability of Expansion; 

 (3) Unremunerativeness to the individual cultivating it, combined with profit or 

 advantage to the community generally'; (4) Costliness. Is'o body is better able 

 to supply such tests with discretion than the British Association. 



The author then enumerates some typical examples of private aid injudiciously 

 given to stricth" public objects; viz. the Kew Observatory, KainfaU, Sewage, the 

 Map of the Moon, and the Tides. 



After pointing out the effect in each of these cases, he then urges that the action 

 now proposed will not chill individual enterprise, which is too fixed a sentiment in 

 the English character to be capable of eradication. He is convinced that ample 

 use will be found for the limited income of the Association after eliminating purely 

 public objects. He admits that such objects will perhaps at first be more or less 

 neglected if abandoned by the Association ; but he considers that this inconvenience 

 will be cheaiply purchased by the dissemination of sounder views on State Science, 

 to which it cannot fail to lead. 



CHEMISTfiY. 



Address h>j J. H. Gladstone, Ph.D., F.R.S., President of the Section. 



One of my fellow-students in the laboratory of the late Professor Graham began 

 the study of Chemistry because he wanted to be a geologist, and he had read ia 

 some Geological Catechism that, in order to be versed in that science, it was neces- 

 sary, as a preliminary step, to gain a knowledge of Chemittry, Mineralogy, Zoo- 

 logy, Botany, and I know not what besides. My friend became a chemist, and 

 found that enough for the exercise of his faculties. Yet the catechism had truth 

 on its side ; for so intertwined are the various branches of observational or experi- 

 mental research, that a perfect understanding of one can only be obtained through 

 an acquaintance with the whole cycle of knowledge. 



Yet, on the other hand, wlio can survey the wliole field e^en of modern Che- 

 mistry ? There was a time doubtless, in the recollection of the more venera,ble of 

 my auditors, wlien it was not impossible to learn all tliat chemists had to teach ; 

 but now that our " Handbook " has grown so large that it Avould take a Briareus 

 to carry it, and it requires a small army of abstractors to give the Chemical Society 

 the substance of what is done abroad, we are compelled to become specialists iii 

 spite of ourselves. He who studies the general laws of Chemistry may well turn 

 in despair from the ever-growing myriads of transformations among the compounds 

 of carbon. We have agricultural, physiological, and technical chemists ; one man 

 builds up new substances, another new formulas ; while some love the rarer metals, 

 and others find their whole soul engrossed by the phenyl compounds. 



How is this necessity of specialization to be reconciled witli the necessity of 

 general knowledge ? By our forming a home for ourselves in some particular region, 

 and becoming intimately conversant with every feature of the locality and their 

 choicest associations, while at the same time we learn the general map of the 

 country, so as to know the relative position and importance of our favourite resort, 

 and to be able (when we desire it) to make excursions elsewhere. 



To facilitate this is one of the great objects of the British Association. The 



