ADDRESS. lxvii 



expression. I need hardly remind the inhabitants of Aberdeen that the 

 Association, in one of the firs-t years of its existence, undertook the com- 

 parative measurement of the Aberdeen standard scale with that of Green- 

 wich, — a research ably carried out by the late Mr. Baily. 



The impediments to the general progress of Science, the removal of which 

 I have indicated as one of the tasks which the Association has set for itself, 

 are of various kinds. If they were only such as direction, advice, and en- 

 couragement would enable the individual, or even combined efforts of philo- 

 sophers, to overcome, the exertions of the Association which I have just 

 alluded to might be sufficient for the purpose. But they are often such as 

 can only be successfully dealt with by the powerful arm of the State or the 

 long purse of the Nation. These impediments may be caused either by the 

 social condition of the country itself, by restrictions arising out of peculiar 

 laws, by the political separation of different countries, or by the magnitude 

 of the undertakings being out of all proportion to the means and power of 

 single individuals, of the Association, or even the voluntary efforts of the 

 Public. In these cases the Association, together with its sister Society " the 

 Royal Society," becomes the spokesman of Science with the Crown, the Go- 

 vernment, or Parliament, — sometimes even, through the Home Government, 

 with foreign Governments. Thus it obtained the establishment, by the British 

 Government, of magnetic and meteorological observatories in six different 

 parts of the globe, as the beginning of a network of stations which we must 

 hope will be so far extended as to compass by their geographical distribution 

 the whole of the phenomena which throw light on this important point in 

 our tellurian and even cosmical existence. The Institute of France, at the 

 recommendation of M. Arago, whose loss the scientific world must long de- 

 plore, cheerfully cooperated with our Council on this occasion. It was our 

 Association which, in conjunction with the Royal Society, suggested the 

 Antarctic Expedition with a view to further the discovery of the laws of ter- 

 restrial magnetism, and thus led to the discovery of the southern polar con- 

 tinent. It urged on the Admiralty the prosecution of the tidal observations, 

 which that Department has since fully carried out. It recommended the 

 establishment, in the British Museum, of the conchological collection exhi- 

 biting present and extinct species, which has now become an object of the 

 greatest interest. 



I will not weary you by further examples, with which most of you are 

 better acquainted than I am myself, but merely express my satisfaction that 

 there should exist bodies of men who will bring the well-considered and un- 

 derstood wants of Science before the public and the Government, who will even 

 hand round the begging-box and expose themselves to refusals and rebuff's 

 to which all beggars are liable, with the certainty, besides, of being consi- 

 dered great bores. Please to recollect that this species of bore is a most 

 useful animal, well adapted for the ends for which Nature intended him. He 

 alone, by constantly returning to the charge, and repeating the same truths and 



e2 



