﻿386 Proceedings. 



fall so far behind the science of the day that even the very terminology of the 

 most recent papers wonld become scarcely intelligible. 



Long since the time when I, and many here present, first settled in this 

 colony, arose the fii-st notice of ozone : the explanations of Fraiinhofer's lines, 

 and the wonders which the analysis of the spectrum has revealed, are still more 

 recent. The dynamic theory of heat, suggested indeed by Bacon and the 

 philosophers of the succeeding age, and made demonstrable by the experiments 

 of Count Rumford and the deductions of Davy and Faraday, can only be said 

 to have been vivified into a fertile principle since the publication of the works 

 of Grove and Tyndall ; and without some clear knowledge of all these, to which 

 the most assiduous study of the standard books even to a comparatively recent 

 date would afibrd no clue, what conception could be formed of the objects and 

 results of some of the most interesting investigations of the day — of the 

 observations for instance of the two recent total eclipses of the sun, the whole 

 interest of which depended on observations with the spectroscope and polari- 

 scope 1 



Now the assisting the student, under the disadvantages of colonial life, in 

 keeping himself duly up to the intelligence of the age, appears to me an object 

 of the Institute almost as important as the prosecution of discoveries in botany, 

 geology, and palseontology. 



While, therefore, I would desire that we should still afibrd the greatest 

 place in our plans to research in natural history, I would seriously call the 

 attention of the members of the Institute to the question, whether it is not 

 time to attempt some regular and systematic encouragement to progress, and 

 some opportunity of improvement in other branches of science ; whether we 

 cannot by that means enlarge the basis of support on which we rest, and secure 

 larger and more frequent attendance at our meetings "? 



I find there is some danger of our being supposed to be a Society 

 exclusively for the study of natural history, and therefore uninteresting to 

 those iTnversed in the branches of science included in that term. If we do not 

 remove that impression, and evince the catholicity of our interest in science, 

 we may run the risk of finding ourselves without the support of that portion 

 of the intelligent public which is not devoted to zoology, botany, and geology. 



'^ Non omnes arhusta juvant humilesque myricce.^' 



And if we would take our proper position before the public, as a point of 

 union and a rendezvous of all persons having any taste for scientific pursuits, 

 we must embrace, as far as we are able, all the objects which attract the 

 attention of curious and inqxiiring minds. The disadvantage of attempting 

 any contact with such subjects as astronomy, spectroscopes, theory of heat, 

 light, and sound, meteorology, biology, chemistry, the microscope, sciences 

 employed in manufactures, such as metallurgy, is that in their pursuit we 



