521 
composed of names* which are to this day almost all held in re- 
spect or reverence. It met once a fortnight, on Friday evenings, at 
the Chapter Coffee House, from seven till nine. 
When Davy quitted Penzance for Clifton and assisted Dr. Bed- 
does in delivering chemical lectures, Mr. Bright’s attachment to 
the science revived with double force. He attended these lectures 
with eagerness and delight ; established a well-appointed laboratory 
in his own garden; and the tarnished dollars, which in 1800, on the 
announcement of Volta’s discoveries, assisted in forming a galvanic 
pile, are still preserved. 
About this time he was much interested in the discovery of large 
masses of sulphate of strontian in the fields adjoining his house at 
Ham Green. Specimens of these, beautifully crystallized, were 
found in nearly an horizontal stratum immediately under the soil: 
at the same spot, the magnesian conglomerate has since yielded 
specimens of meiomite. 
Mr. Bright’s influence and taste and knowledge of architecture 
were often employed in behalf of his native city. The library, the 
infirmary, the asylum for the blind, the college, the observatory, 
are among those establishments for which in succession he has la- 
boured ; and on none did he bestow more of his time and thought 
than on The Bristol Institution, both at the period of its formation 
in 1822, and for the eighteen years which intervened between that 
and his these Pesan ail establishments of this kind were at this 
time new experiments, and when political feelings were strong, he 
co-operated most efficiently with his friends Dr. Beake, then Dean 
of Bristol, Mr. Harford, Mr. Sanders, and The Rev. W. D. Cony- 
beare, to induce men of all parties to meet together on that neutral 
ground,—the formation of a scientific society for a common object 
~ to promote the study of the works of nature, and the advancement 
of literature, s science, a and art. 
Amid all his various scientific interests, mineralogy, geology, and 
fossil osteology claimed the first place. Cuvier’s researches were 
noted and abstracted in 1835 as earnestly as Adair Crawford's 
work on Heat was in 1779. He was as eager to possess and examine 
specimens of the fossil Infusoria of Ehrenberg at the age of 84, as 
he had been when scarcely twenty to hail a new discovery of his 
friend Dr. Priestley ; and he felt as glad and excited in forming a 
personal acquaintance with the eminent geologists who came to the 
meeting of the British Association in 1836, as he had formerly been 
in his introduction to Franklin at Paris in 1777. At the age of 82, 
when bodily infirmity prevented him from taking any very active 
part in the proceedings of the British Association assembled at 
Bristol, he made his house and collections at Ham Green access- 
ible to all its members. He was at that moment ardently following 
_ * Dr. Hunter, Dr. Crawford, Dr. Price, Dr. Priestley, Dr. Kier, Dr. 
Cleghorne, Dr. Quin, Dr. Wells, Messrs. Nairne, Aubert, Whitehurst, 
Horsefall, Jones (afterwards Sir William), Howard, Bolton, Kirwan, Black. 
hall, Bright, Benjamin Vaughan. 
