ADDRESS. cv 
Can it be supposed, if the rural districts about the metropolis were in a con- 
dition to avail themselves of a daily supply of pipe-water not more than 
equivalent to that which a heavy shower of rain throws down on 2000 acres 
of land, but a supply charged with 30 tons of nitrogenous ammoniacal prin- 
ciples, that such supply would not be forthcoming, and made capable of 
being distributed when called for within a radius of 100 miles? I believe 
that, were the call made as loudly as it undoubtedly would be under the 
exigencies of a more advanced stage of agricultural mechanics, the skill of 
our engineers, with the constructive powers of our machine-makers, both 
earried to a degree of perfection which the world never before saw, would 
speedily and successfully meet the call, and leave nothing but the rainfall of 
the metropolis to seek its natural receptacle—the Thames. 
To send ships for foreign ammoniacal or phosphatic excreta to the coast 
of Peru, and to pollute by the waste of similar home products the noble 
river bisecting the metropolis, and washing the very walls of our Houses of 
Parliament, are flagrant signs of the desert and uncultivated state of a field 
where science and practice have still to cooperate for the public benefit. 
To promote this cooperation, effectual aid may be given by a recently 
established kindred Association, through the advancement of the legislative 
and administrative sciences. For it is the present condition of those social 
sciences which forms the chief obstacle to the practical application of 
Sanitary science. Of this science, it may be confidently averred that, be- 
sides providing means for the relief of town-populations from excessive 
sickness, it has, in a sufficient number of instances, provided means for the 
prevention of the pollution of rivers as well as for applying the manure of 
towns to fertilize the land. 
The application of those means now rests with the Legislator and Ad- 
ministrator, and involves questions which are not within the province of 
the British Association*. 
Some of our sciences are deeply concerned in one progressive step,—the 
uniformity of standard in measure and weight throughout the civilized 
world; in urging on which step, energetic and unwearied efforts are now 
being made by a Committee of our fellow-labourers of the Royal Society of 
Arts, amongst whom the name of the prime promoter of this and kindred 
reforms, Mr. James YareEs, deserves especial and honourable mention. 
, Chemistry is more concerned in the uniform expression of the results of 
her delicate balances amongst her cultivators of differeut countries: Natural 
History is no less interested in the use, by all observers, of one and the same 
scale for measuring, and of one set of terms for expressing the superficial 
dimensions of her subjects. Practically, I may state that I have found the 
* Services on three successive Sanitary Commissions, on the First Consolidated Metro- 
politan Sewers Commission, and at the Board of Health, have led me to enter at undue 
length on Sanitary matters, and are pleaded in excuse. 
