514 Proceedings. 



colony can liope to produce a Darwin, a Helmholtz, a Joule, a Mayer, a 

 Huxley, or a Tyndall ; any colony may think itself fortunate wliicli can 

 secure the presence of a Hector, a Hutton, or a Kirk. 



But though wo cannot hope to see produced amongst ns great original 

 investigators or gcncralizers — thougli few or none of us liave the opportunity 

 even to verify experimentally those discoveries which we read of in the 

 proceedings of the scientific societies elsewhere — shall we, therefore, neglect or 

 ignore them ? Shall we allow to pass unheeded those great expansions of 

 thought, those splendid views of the universe we live in, which have arisen 

 from modern discoveries, and which are profoundly altering the very bases of 

 our physical reasonings and upsetting or remodelling notions which, in my early 

 days, were considered axiomatic 1 Shall we allow those great waves of thought, 

 which in Europe are traversing intellect at a depth hitherto unknown, to 

 produce no ripple here, and, by our indifference, leave the rising minds of the 

 colony to stagnate in contented ignorance ? Gentlemen, I conceive that one 

 of the chief aims of these affiliated institutes is to keep alive an interest in 

 the higher branches of science, and that it is a paramount duty to open a 

 vision, or at least a glimpse, of the greater scientific speculations of the day to 

 those who may be growing up scarcely knowing, and little heeding, their 

 existence. 



Thus it appears to me that there is in our Institute an unlimited field for 

 the action of members, who though, like myself, not devoted to the pursuit of 

 any science, and who would utterly disavow the name of scientific men, yet 

 who, in the course of their reading, are led to examine and to digest, more or 

 less critically, what is going on in scientific circles at Home, and who may be 

 enabled, as I fear I am not, to reproduce some portion of their reading in a 

 manner possibly to attract attention and provoke thought and discussion, 

 though not in itself of a quality to instruct. Pursuing this view, then, 

 I propose to lay before you some slight sketch, chiefly extracted from two or 

 three of the papers which were read before the meeting of the British 

 Association, which met at Bradford in September last, and especially to say a 

 few words on the life and work of that admirable philosopher. Dr. Joule, of 

 Manchester, who was nominated for its president, but who was precluded 

 from occupying the post by the state of his health. 



Dr. Joule's name will ever be remembered in connection with the determi- 

 nation of the dynamic equivalent of heat : a most important step towards 

 tlio grandest generalization of our day — the Conservation of Energy — 

 involving, as it docs, the identity of lieat, light, and force, and clearly 

 tracing every form of motion, whether mechanical or muscular, whether in 

 the form of electricity, of lieat, or light, or of chemical action, to one kind of 

 energy, the wliole derived in our astronomical system from its centre, the sun ; 



