TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 151 



tion, they felt that their hardships were nearly over. They soon after reached a 

 station belonging to a Mr. Chines, -whose shepherd hospitably received and enter- 

 tained them. Thence to Perth the progress of the expedition was a triumphal 

 procession. 



The results of the observations made during the journey may he shortly summed 

 up as follows : — 



The main geological feature of the country was red granite ; early in the journey 

 limestone was crossed, and once to the south of the route a quartz matrix was hit 

 upon. 



The phytology was most interesting, and many specimens were collected by Mr. 

 Young. The vegetation consisted chiefly of Eucalyptus, Casuarina, Callistris, and 

 various kinds of acacia. The variation of the thermometer during the journey, 

 which began in June and ended in November, was very considerable. On several 

 occasions it was as low as freezing-point before simrise, though during the day in 

 October and November (the Australian spring) it rose to 98° in the shade. In E. 

 long. 118° 30' and S. lat. 29° 53', on the 26th of October, dew -was first noticed, 

 and continued to fall throughout the remaining distance to the settlements. 



ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. 



Address by The Eight Hon. the Eael Foetescue, President of the Section. 



It is with great diffidence that I present myself before you as Chairman of this 

 Section. This is the first occasion on which I have accepted any post of any thing 

 like this kind since, more than 20 years ago, in the course of personal sanitary 

 investigations to collect materials for my resolutions in the House of Commons about 

 the health of the army, I contracted a disease which destroyed one eye, per- 

 manently inj ured the other, and rendered me for years an invalid unable to winter 

 in England. Nor should I have been induced now to accept this honourable post 

 were it not that the British Association this year is holding its meeting, not merely 

 within my own county of Devon, but also in a town which has the strongest claims 

 upon my gratitude. For it was Plymouth that first gave me a seat in Parliament, 

 and continued to return me triumphantly as long as I desired to represent it. Great, 

 indeed, is the increase in extent and the improvement in appearance of the three 

 towns since those days. I hope and believe that their moral and sanitary improve- 

 ments have been equally great, though not, of course, as apparent to the mere 

 visitor's eye. It was in Plymouth, too, that, about 32 years ago, I read in the 

 Mechanics' Institute a lecture on the Health of Towns, the first paper I had ever 

 prepared for publication ; and it was in the preparation of that lecture that I first 

 became fully sensible of the inadequacy of benevolence alone, without some know- 

 ledge of political economy, to produce really beneficent results, and that I first 

 practically learnt the great value of Statistics, and their indispensable necessity as 

 the surest tests of past and safest guides to future action and legislation. My dis- 

 tinguished predecessor in this chair last year said (and having myself, as a member 

 of the Council of the Statistical Society, received an intimation to the same effect, 

 I will adopt his words) : — " I understand it to be the object of the Association that 

 in the treatment of the subjects presented to us we should study, in this as in other 

 departments, to follow as far as may be a strictly scientific method of inquiry, not 

 lapsing into the discussion of political details, but attempting to ascertain the prin- 

 ciples on which economic results are founded, and to define the main lines of 

 economic truth. It may not always be possible to draw the boundary between 



