410 Proceedings. 
for my present purpose to observe that there is nothing inconceivable or absurd 
in the supposition that the laws which regulate the action of electricity on the 
earth in other countries are here inoperative, or superseded by other laws, 
so as to produce a different result. But this is a question which, as a mere 
question of ubstract science, requires further investigation ; it is one also of 
very great practicalimportance. If it be indeed true that the conditions under 
which electricity exists here, that the influence which it exerts on the earth 
. here is different from that which it exerts elsewhere—then some of the most 
important of our industrial occupations must be, to a greater or less extent, 
affected by the difference. That electricity is a most powerful agent in the 
material world is a well-established fact. :No one doubts that it performs a 
distinguished part in the economy of our atmosphere, and there is every reason 
io suppose that its action is still more general—that it exercises an influence 
almost universal over the laws of organie matter as well as over the functions 
of organic life. Now, it is not unreasonable to suppose that, in a country 
where the earth, instead of dispersing, resists electricity, the existence of this 
anomaly would be felt in numberless ways, and necessitate numberless 
modifications of ordinary practice. As a matter of fact, from whatever cause 
this may arise, I think it is acknowledged, for instance, that many kinds of 
plants when grown here lose some of those properties which they possessed in 
England. 
Animal life, again—in our sheep, our horses, our cattle, and our dogs— 
appears to undergo very considerable modifications. So it is with our social 
and political life. The most superficial observer can perceive that the questions 
with which we have to deal here are not identical, either in form ог in 
substance, with those which agitate other communities. Thus it is that we 
have here special problems to solve, which none can solve so satisfactorily as 
ourselves. In the solution of these we must trust to our own efforts, and not 
lean upon foreign learning and foreign aid. We have greater facilities than 
others for performing the task allotted to us, because we have better 
opportunities for observation. We can examine into the object of enquiry on 
the spot, in its native locality ; we have before our eyes all the circumstances 
by which it may be affected, and we have facilities, not enjoyed by others, for 
daily and hourly observation of any changes which may take place. Others at 
a distance can gain this knowledge only at second hand, and ean have no . 
certain means of testing and verifying the information so received. Any 
observations which may be made here, and any new truths which those 
observations may establish, become then no longer of local importance, but 
are new lights thrown upon the universal science of the world, because they 
indicate the circumstances more minutely upon which the results obtained 
depend. Our means and appliances for study in both these directions—the 
