THE president's ADDRESS. 89 



tions and galleries which annually open their doors and display their 

 treasures for the improvement and delight of the thousands who throng 

 to the great metropolis of England, I know of none more interesting 

 than the Photographic Exhibition, which has now become an annual 

 one, and taken rank as such among the regular exhibitions of the year. 



But photography does not content itself with ministering to the 

 pleasure of the lovers of art ; it has become the active handmaid of 

 science, — giving to the astronomer faithful portraits of the heavenly 

 bodies — to the zoologist and botanist the most accurate representa- 

 tions of the most complex subjects in their various departments — 

 representations such as the ablest draughtsman could not furnish them 

 with, in which the most minute peculiarities of form and structure are 

 so wonderfully reproduced, that, as has been observed, " naturalists 

 might even make discoveries upon these faithful images of nature, as 

 they could have done upon nature itself." Nay, to such perfection 

 has this art been brought, that the most transitory objects, even to 

 the portrait of a shell while in full flight from a mortar, has been 

 faithfully registered : the photographic eye being " more sensitive than 

 the living one, and registering impressions too fine for human vision !" 



Of that most wonderful of all the modern applications of science, 

 the electric Telegraph, I am sure I shall be excused for quoting the 

 remarks made by Professor Owen, in reference to it, in the course of 

 his admirable address to the British Association. After referring to 

 the discoveries in electro-magnetism, the Professor says : " Remote 

 as such profound conceptions and subtle trains of thought seem to 

 be from the needs of every-day life, the most astounding of the 

 practical augmentations of man's power has sprung out of them. 

 Nothing might seem less promising of profit than Oersted's painfully 

 pursued experiments with his little magnets, voltaic piles, and bits 

 of copper wire ; — yet out of these has sprung the electric cable ! 

 Oersted himself saw such an application of his convertibility of 

 electricity into magnetism, and made arrangements for testing that 

 application to the instantaneous communication of signs through 

 distances of a few miles. The resources of inventive genius have 

 made it practicable for all distances, as we have lately seen in the 

 submergence and working of the electro-magnetic cord connecting 

 the old and the new world. On the 6th of August, 1858, the lay- 

 ing down of upwards of 2,000 nautical miles of the telegraph cords 

 connecting Newfoundland and Ireland was successfully completed, 



