ADDEESS 



BY 



C. WILLIAM SIEMENS, 



D.C.L. (Oxon), LL.D. (Glasc. and Dabl.), Ph.D., F.R.S., F.C.S., 



Member Inst.C.E., 



PRESIDENT. 



In venturing to address the British Association from this chair, I feel 

 that I have taken upon myself a task involving very serious responsibility. 

 The Association has for half a century fulfilled the important mission of 

 drawing together, once every year, scientists from all parts of the country 

 for the purpose of discussing questions of mutual interest, of endowing 

 research, and of cultivating those personal relations which aid so power- 

 fully in harmonising views, and in stimulating concerted action for the 

 advancement of science. 



A sad event casts a shadow over our gathering. While still mourning 

 the irreparable loss Science had sustained in the person of Chai-les Darwin, 

 whose bold conceptions, patient labour, and genial mind made him almost 

 a type of unsurpassed excellence, telegraphic news reached Cambridge, 

 just a month ago, to the effect that our General Secretary, Professor 

 F. M. Balfour, had lost his life during an attempted ascent of the Aiguille 

 Blanche de Peteret. Although only thirty years of age, few men have 

 won distinction so rapidly and so deservedly. After attending the 

 lectures of Dr. Michael Foster, he completed his studies of Biology under 

 Dr. Anton Dohrn at the Zoological Station of Naples in 1875. In 1878 

 he was elected a Fellow, and in November last a member of Council 

 of the Royal Society, when he was also awarded one of the Royal Medals 

 for his embryological researches. Within a short interval of time Glasgow 

 University conferred on him their honorary degree of LL.D., he was 

 elected President of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, and after having 

 declined very tempting offers from the Universities of Oxford and Edin- 

 burgh, he accepted a professorship of Animal Morphology created for 

 him by his own University. Few men could have borne without hurt 

 such a stream of honourable distinctions, but in j^oung Balfour genius 

 and independence of thought were happily blended with industry and 

 personal modesty ; these won for him the friendship, esteem, and admira- 

 tion of all who knew him. 



It affords me gi-eat satisfaction to qualify the sad impression produced 



1882. B 



