224 . Address delivered at the sixth and last 



and that it will not be poisoned by rank or unprofitable 

 infusions, we have an assurance in the cordial superintendence 

 of those individuals who are most interested in preserving its 

 purity. It is one of the most auspicious signs of the times in 

 which we live, that men of science, without neglecting those 

 more recondite and technical performances in which it is 

 necessary to concentrate their knowledge, unite in arraying it 

 in that attractive exterior which recommends it to the good 

 offices of every man. 



The impulse imparted to the propagation of our science 

 throughout this country, from these and similar causes, has 

 been already pointed out to you from this chair. You have 

 heard that in almost every town of any note in the united 

 kingdoms, societies have been established, in which the study 

 of zoology forms a prominent object. I may add, that even 

 in these Institutions which have hitherto been most backward 

 in acknowledging the natural sciences as a part of their 

 system of education, a door is now opened to the admission of 

 them. Cambridge has led the way. Her Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Society has formed the nucleus of a museum, that 

 promises most auspiciously to zoology. In Oxford the same 

 success has attended our cause ; and the spirit of Ashmole 

 and Tradescant has revived in those brother naturalists, who, 

 united in taste and liberality as in blood, have claimed for the 

 name of Duncan the gratitude, not merely of their own Alma 

 Mater, but of the world of science at large. While it has been 

 reserved for this age and this metropolis to wipe away the 

 opprobrium so long attached to England, that she possessed 

 no chair of zoology. And to the liberal and highly gifted 

 managers of the London University it is to be attributed, that 

 a professorship in that science has been instituted, and ably 

 filled, during the past year. 



Nor has the impulse been limited to the parent country ; 

 but seems to have pervaded to the remotest of her settlements. 

 I have to record, among the events of the past year, the esta- 

 blishment of a scientific association among the British resi- 

 dents at Canton, for the purpose of investigating all that is of 

 scientific value in that quarter of the globe. In Demerara, 

 and the neighbouring dependencies of British Guiana, a 

 similar institution has been formed, with similar objects, 

 under the patronage of the present enlightened governor. Sir 

 Benjamin d' Urban. The same spirit is diffusing itself in 

 many of the West India Islands^ And in Quebec a society 

 has been lately embodied, the beneficial effects of which have 

 already appeared in the publication of a volume of Transac- 

 tions. • Some of the papers in that work, devoted to natural 



