478 Proceedings. 
the mercury in the tube be equally supported by the weight of the atmo- 
spheric column, then, as we decrease the height and weight of that column, by 
_ ascending a mountain, the mercury ought to fall. Accordingly, he ascended 
the Puy de Déme, taking with him what we may now call a mercurial 
barometer, which he found to full as he ascended, and rise again as he 
descended, with perfect regularity. 
Now, although we cannot hope to match the grand discoveries which I 
have just described, let this Society and others connected with the New 
Zealand Institute comfort and animate themselves with the reflection that we 
enjoy as the scene of our operations a new country and a comparatively 
unexplored field; and not only may we add materially to the common stock 
of scientific knowledge, but we may exercise a much more useful function— 
we may each in our humble sphere of life aid in the extension and diffusion 
of scientific knowledge among those who by their practical skill are best able 
to turn it to profitable account. 
Another word of encouragement to those who are actively engaged in the 
ordinary business of life. The highest attainments of science have not been 
confined to those who have devoted themselves exclusively to scientific 
pursuits. Merchants, bankers, clergymen, lawyers, musicians, medical men— 
actively engaged in their respective professions and callings—have rendered 
themselves eminent in science by study during their hours of leisure. Lord 
Bacon, a lawyer and Lord High Chancellor of England, is considered the 
founder of the inductive philosophy, the true method of “ interrogating 
nature,” to use his own expression. David Ricardo, author of the “ Principles 
of Political Economy and Taxation,” was an active and successful member of 
the Stock Exchange. Thomas Tooke, the author of the “History of Prices,” 
and a scientific writer on currency, was a Russian merchant, and at a time, 
too, when merchants had a prejudice against the science. George Grote was a 
banker when he commenced his truly philosophical “History of Ancient 
Greece,” and became an active member of Parliament during the progress of 
his work. John Stuart Mill, when he wrote his admirable “ System of Logic, 
Ratiocinative, and Inductive,” and his “ Principles of Political Economy,” was 
a laborious officer of the East India Company. It is only his recent works 
that can be considered as the fruit of “a learned leisure.” His philosophical 
works are enough for a long life of thought, and yet between thirty and forty 
years of that life were occupied in a laborious and responsible office. The 
power-loom was invented by the Rev. Edmund Cartwright—a country clergy- 
man. The great bell at the New Houses of Parliament was planned, and the 
casting thereof superintended, by a barrister and a clergyman—E. Becket 
Denison and the Rev. W. Taylor; and it is a curious coincidence that the 
_ first bell ever cast in England was cast by Turketel, a monk, Chancellor to 
