THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 103 
this earth it detects the 100,000,000th portion of a grain. Well may 
we exclaim in those words which are each year receiving further 
confirmation and development :—‘ What is man that thou art mindful 
of him? and the Son of man that thou visitest him? For thou hast 
made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with 
~glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the 
works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.”’ 
Of the remaining two medals of the Royal Society one was awarded 
to Professor Williamson for his researches in compound ethers, and 
his establishment of the correctness of the theory of types, as 
foreshadowed by Mr. Sterry Hunt of the Canadian Survey, and 
now almost universally adopted by chemists. 
The benefits of the inter-communication afforded by the electric 
telegraph are being rapidly extended all over the earth, and so many 
links of the chain destined yet to gird the world have been completed, 
‘that messages on ordinary business are now transmitted over 4000 or 
5000 miles. Hopes are entertained, and not without reason, that the 
-old and the new worlds will soon be connected by a line more durable 
and more secure than that which a few years ago raised expectations 
that were so soon disappointed. Nor should I omit mentioning, 
whilst adverting to the subject, that amongst the astonishing notices 
-of discoveries of the past year is one, apparently trustworthy, that 
electric signals are now transmitted without any artificial conductors. 
Before I pass on from this most interesting and important field of 
scientific research, let me briefly notice the remarkable manufacture 
of artificial stone by Mr. Ransome. The material consists of “‘ any 
kind of mineral fragments, sand, limestone or clay, mixed into paste 
by a mould with fluid silicate of soda, and afterwards dipped into a 
‘solution of chloride of calcium.” 
At the progress of knowledge in the Natural Sciences— Mineralogy 
and Geology, Zoology and Botany,—I can take but a passing glance. 
The Surveys which have been carried on both in Europe and on 
this continent, have greatly extended our acquaintance with the crust 
of the earth, and no inconsiderable advancement of our knowledge may 
‘be expected from the new science of Seismology. 
A notable addition to Paleontology has been made by the discovery 
-of a bird in the oolitic slate of Solenhofen, the most ancient ornithic 
‘specimen of which we possess any certain evidence. Professor Owen 
‘has given a description of it, characterised by his usual acumen. He 
