370 Helvetic Society. 



meeting. There is not much perhaps in this review, which 

 lies beyond the field of physical science; but 1 shall venture 

 upon a circumference more extensive, and more analogous 

 perhaps to the title of our society, and to its constitution, 

 which embraces, in some sort, the whole of nature, and di- 

 rects by turns the attention and the researches of our numer- 

 ous coadjutors* towards every object of interest which it 

 can offer, and whose number is without limitation. 



Not only are the sciences of nature and observation so 

 connected with each other as to form an uninterrupted 

 chain ; they have become at the present time, intimately 

 allied to the exact sciences, by the medium of the atomic 

 theory, which, pursuing in thoughts the elements of bodies 

 far beyond the feeble powers of our senses, has discovered, 

 in the varied combinations of those indivisible elementary 

 molecules, simple relations both of weight and volume ; a 

 discovery which has opened the way to a rigorous arithmet- 

 ical calculation in cases wherein it was before necessary to 

 remain satisfied with vague and uncertain estimates. Not 

 only are these calculations, for the most part, the result of 

 actual chemical analyses — they often prepare the way for 

 them and decide upon their conclusions a priori ; and the 

 experience of the manipulating chemist, does but confirm 

 what the theory had foretold by the learned and judicious 

 application of the science of numbers. We are indebted to 

 Higgins for having opened this path ; but it was only a faint 

 glimmering of the truth, until, by the meditations and labours 

 of Dalton, Wollaston, Davy, and Berzelius, it assumed a high 

 degree of interest among the physico-mathematical sciences, 

 and became a guide and even an instrument of research in 

 the hands of the distinguished men just mentioned, and whose 

 simultaneous existence, and active co-operation form in our 

 own time, an epoch in the annals of science. 



Passing from these events, which are in some sort Euro- 

 pean, to those on account of which our own country has a 

 right to our felicitation, I must refer for details to the special 

 reports of the cantonal societies of Zurich, Berne, Geneva, 

 St. Gall, Lausanfte, Arau, Schaffhausen, and of our younger 

 sister of Soleure, who has this year entered upon the career 

 under the happiest auspices. It is, I repeat, to an expose of 



"^ The society has now 415 members, and 114 foreig-n associates. 



