THE president's ADDRESS. ' 103 



grapb Is so thoroughly understood and appreciated, cauiiot fail to 

 remember that this, — one of the most surprising, as well as the most 

 useful boons, which the application of modern science has bestowed 

 upon mankind, — Avas dependent on the discovery of those laws of 

 electricity and magnetism which are being further evolved, by the 

 means of such careful and unbroken notings of varying phenomena 

 as have been for years recorded at our own Magnetic Observatory. 



Such an establishment is worthy of the rising character of this ■ 

 fast-growing community, and affords to foreign countries one of the 

 best proofs of our real advancement. Our progress and improve- 

 ment have been wrung from a soil which, however fertile, was covered 

 with a dense and pathless forest; and the toil necessary to reclaim 

 it left to the laborer little force, and even less of time and oppor- 

 tunity, for mental cultivation. It cannot, therefore, be a matter of 

 surprise that attempts at intellectual progress should have tarried for 

 the material progress which has been so successfully achieved ; that 

 efforts to cultivate the sciences, the gesthetic arts, the abstract 

 philosophy, in which consist the true elements of national greatness, 

 should but recently commence, and by d-egi-ees occupy the 

 thoughts and attention of the people ; and it is in this view that 

 the Toronto Magnetic Observatory becomes a subject of honest con- 

 gratulation. It is a thing of a world-wide character, designed to 

 co-operate with all other nations engaged in similar researches, and 

 founded in the most generous spirit of philanthrophy, which seeks 

 to benefit as well future generations as our own : by the accumula- 

 tion of truths, the full development and practical application whereof 

 will only be known and made available to those who come after us, 

 to fill our places in this busy world. 



JSor can I refrain, in this place, from making an allusion to one 

 especial advantage which a full mastery of the laws of magnetic 

 science will confer upon commerce, in respect to the use of iron 

 ships, which, from the material of which they are constructed, ren- 

 der the magnet useless, unless the influences of local attraction can 

 be overcome. More than one disaster has arisen from this cause ; 

 and it is only to a perfection of the science that we can look with 

 hopeful confidence for an effectual remedy ; for it has been found 

 that this local attraction itself is dependent, in iron vessels, on the 

 exercise of an inducing effect by the earth's magnetism, and varies 

 with it according to laws the course of which has yet to be traced. The 

 importance of this consideration will be the better appreciated, by 

 remembering; that the Leviathan — that wonder of naval architecture. 



