Scientific Meeting in Germany. 277 



eulogised the self-taught practical man, ignorant of the "jargon" 

 of geology, who made this great discovery, will confess themselves 

 little less in fault than the poor sinner who, out of pocket and of 

 work in a strange land, lends himself to deceive a too-credulous 

 public and to afford scoffers at the hardly-earned results of scien- 

 tific investigation a short-lived triumph. 



SCIENTIFIC MEETING IN GERMANY. 

 Communicated by A. Gordon Esq. 



The thirty-third annual meeting of German naturalists and phy- 

 sicists was held last September in Bonn ; and having had an op- 

 portunity of witnessing a portion of the proceedings, it has occur- 

 red to me that a short account of what came under my notice 

 may possess some interest for the readers of the Canadian Natura- 

 list. Many of them are no doubt aware that it is to these meetings 

 that the plan of the British Association owes its origin. The late 

 Professor Oken is the man to whom the Germans are indebted 

 for their first organization, and he himself received his idea from 

 Switzerland. In noticing the proceedings of the Swiss naturalists 

 in his Isis, Oken frequently took occasion to represent the advan- 

 tages which Germany might derive from similar reunions, where 

 the members, becoming personally acquainted, could interchange 

 their opinions, communicate and endeavour to resolve each others' 

 doubts, and afford each other mutual encouragement in the path 

 of scientific inquiry. ' The first meeting took place at Leipzig in 

 1822, but it was several years before the number of participators 

 rose so high as thirty. The stream, however, if not broad, was 

 deep from the outset. Gradually it became wider. The recent 

 meeting in Bonn though by no means so numerously attended as 

 that held in 1856 at Vienna, mustered to the number of niiie 

 hundred and sixty, and included many of the most eminent names 

 of Europe in tha various departments of science. In the geologi- 

 cal section, of which I formed an unworthy member, I observed 

 Merian, Rose, Von Carnall, Blum, Noeggerath, Murchison, EHe 

 de Beaumont. 



The proceedings of the first general meeting were opened on 

 18th September by Professor Noeggerath, who greeted the as- 

 sembly with genunine German bonhommie. His appearance 

 reminded me of a weather-beaten column of basalt, which seemed 



