78 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



nominally completed on Mount Etna in 1882, from which Professor 

 Langely distinguished nine stars forming the pleiades, whilst from 

 ordinary levels only six can be seen with the naked eye, and glimpses 

 of a seventh and an eighth with telescopic aid. Nature seldom 

 volunteers information ; usually it has to be extracted from her by 

 skilful cross-examination. No opportunities of seeing will avail those 

 who know not how to look, and the elevated sites now chosen for 

 the exquisite instruments constructed by modern opticians, give 

 abundant promise of increased astronomical knowledge. 



I could cite the various branches of study, all tending to op- 

 pose inaction, but I must pass on to a close. Science has done 

 much to ennoble mankind in freeing it from superstition. Before 

 its searching light the belief in witchcraft and ghosts has disappeared, 

 and intolerance of every kind is fast on the wane. The most im- 

 portant secrets of nature are often hidden away in the most unex- 

 pected places. The refuse of factories has, by the application of 

 science, yielded many articles now in daily requisition, and things 

 which are familiar parts of our everyday life would still be unknown 

 except for scientific research. That discoveries innumerable await 

 the successful explorer of nature no one can doubt. Sir John Her- 

 schell said : " Since it cannot be but that innumerable and most 

 " important uses remain to be discovered among the materials and 

 " obiects already known to us, as well as amongst those which the 

 " progress of science must hereafter disclose, we may conceive a 

 " well grounded expectation not only of constant increase in the 

 " physical resources of mankind, and the consequent improvement 

 " in their condition, but of continual accession to our power of 

 " penetrating into the arcana of nature, and becoming acquainted 

 " with her highest laws. And it is not only in a material point of 

 " view that science would thus benefit a nation, but it will raise and 

 " strengthen the national as surely as the individual character. The 

 " field on which the victories of science have already been won, is 

 '' teaming with problems of the widest bearing on many questions of 

 " the day — social, philosophical, religious and natural. To the 

 " scientific man belongs the spirit of the great world, brooding upon 

 " things to come. In the truest sense his is the future. The in- 

 " heritance of the part is ours, and in the literature of our own and 

 '' other countries we may study the great generalizations of science, 



