370 



MEETING OF THE BKITISH ASSOCIATION AT GLASGOW. 



[1855. 



All who are interested ia the devotion of abilities, of means 

 and of leisure to the noblest pur.suits, must earnestly wish to 

 see Lord llosse rewarded by that which he will value most, 

 the steady progress of discovery. It must always be remem- 

 bered, however, that Astronomy is a science of which hitherto 

 at least it might almost be said that one great genius had left 

 us no more worlds to conquer ; that is to say, he carried our 

 knowledge at a bound to one grand, and apparently iiniversal 

 law, to which all worlds were subject, and of which every new 

 discovery had been but an additional illustration. The reign of 

 that law, whether universal or not, was at least so wide, that 

 we hr.d never pierced beyond the boundary of its vast domain. 

 For the first time since the days of Newton a suspicion has 

 arisen in the minds of astronomers that we have passed into 

 the reign of other laws, and that the nebular phenomena re- 

 vealed to us by Lord Eosse's telescope must be governed by 

 forces different from those of which we have any knowledge. 

 Whether this opinion be or be not well founded — whether it 

 be or be not probable that our limited command over time and 

 space can ever yield to our research any other law of interest 

 or importance comparable with that which has already been 

 determined — still, inside that vast horizon there are fillirgs-in 

 and fillings-up which will ever furnish infinite reward to labour. 

 Of these, not a few have been secured since our last meeting 

 here. Besides the patient work of our professed astronomers, 

 and the good service rendered by such men as Mr. Lassell and 

 Mr. Nasmyth, who have so well relieved the business of com- 

 mercial industry by their devotion to the pursuits of science, 

 we have had one event so remarkable, that in the whole history 

 of astronomy it stands alone. If in looking at the wonderful 

 objects revealed to us in Lord Rosse's telescope we turn in- 

 stinctively sometimes from the thing shown to the thing which 

 shows — from the Spiral Nebulas to the knowledge and resour- 

 ces which have collected their feeble light, and brought their 

 mysterious forms under the cognizance of the human eye, — 

 how much more curiously do we turn from the single planet 

 Neptune, to that other instrument which has fdt, as it were, 

 and found its obscure and distant orbit ! So long as our sue- 

 cies remains, that body will be associated with one of the most 

 glorious proofs ever given of the reach of the human intellect; 

 — of the sweep and certainty of that noble science which now 

 honours with enduring memory the twin names of Adams and 

 Leverrier. 



In Geology, the youngest, but not the least vigorous of the 

 sciences, every year has been adding to the breadth of its foun- 

 dation — to the depth and meaning of its results. Probably 

 no science has ever advanced with more rapid steps. In 1840 

 the then recent publication of the " Silurian System" had just 

 established those landmarks of the Paleozoic world which all 

 subsequent discovery has only tended so confirm. The great 

 horizons which were first defined by the labours of Murchison 

 and Sedgwick have since disclosed the same phenomena which 

 they so accurately described, in every quarter of the globe ; 

 and the generalisations founded thereupon have been definitely 

 established. The same period has sufiiced, partly by the la- 

 bours of the same distinguished men, to clear up the relative 

 position of the strata which represent the closing epochs of 

 ancient life, and those which form the base of the secondary 

 age. But above all, the last few years have seen immense 

 progress made in our knowledge of that vast series of deposits 

 which usher in the dawn of existing forms, and carry us on to 

 those changes, which, though the most recent, are not the least 

 obscure of any which have affected the surface of the globe. 

 The investigations of Edward Forbes on the laws which de- 



termined the conditions of Marine Zoology have supplied us 

 with data altogether new on some of the highest conclusions 

 of the science; whilst his profound speculations on the centres 

 of creation and areas of distribution have pointed out paths of 

 inquiry which are themselves of inexhaustible interest, and 

 hold out the promise of great results. Another branch of in- 

 vestigation, which, if not entirely new, is as least pursued on 

 a new system, and with new resources, has been opened up in 

 Dynamical Geology by the learning and ingenuity of Mr. Hop- 

 kins ; whilst the thorough elucidation of the conditions of 

 Glacier Motion, which we owe to Prof. James Forbes, of Edin- 

 burgh, has given us clear and definite ideas in one, and that 

 not the least important of the agents in geological change. 

 The observations accumulated during the recent Arctic voyages 

 have materially added to our knowledge of the operation of the 

 same agency under diiferent conditions — conditions which we 

 know must once have extended widely over the firths and es- 

 tuaries near where we are now assembled — leaving behind them 

 those enduring records of the glacial epoch which were first 

 explored by my friend, Mr. Smith, of Jordan Hill. We owe 

 many important observations on the same phenomena, and on 

 the various changes of sealevel, to Mr. Robert Chambers. 

 And if the thanks of science are due to those who advance her 

 interests, both directly by adding to her store of facts or of her 

 discovered laws, and also indirectly by investing them with 

 popular interest, and thus enlarging the circle of observers, Tve 

 must mention with special gratitude the classical works of Mr. 

 Hugh Miller; and those writings of Sir Charles Lyell, which 

 his indefatigable industry is ever bringing up abreast with the 

 progress of discovery — a progress stimulated in no small degree 

 by his own exertions, — and which are alike remarkable for 

 completeness of knowledge, for fertility of suggestion, and for 

 sound philosophical reasoning. I think we cannot mistake the 

 general tendency of Geological research, whether Stratigraphi- 

 cal or Zoological. It has been to prolong periods which had 

 been considered short ; to divide others which were classed 

 together; to fill up spaces which were imagined blank, and to 

 connect more and more in one unbroken chain the course of 

 physical change and the progress of organic life. 



We pass from geology by a natural transition to another 

 science which stands to it in close alliance If all our most 

 sure conclusions respecting the superficial covering of the globe 

 have been founded on the classification of its animal remains, 

 it is not less true that our knowledge and understanding of 

 organic structure have been infinitely extended by the means 

 which geology has afforded of studying that structure in rela- 

 tion to its history in past time. In the hands of our great 

 countryman. Prof. Owen, Physiology has assumed a new rank 

 in science, leading us up to the very threshold of the deepest 

 mysteries of Nature. If the last few years had been marked 

 by no other event in the advancement of science, there would 

 have been enough to signalize them in the publication of his 

 treatise on the " Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton :" and 

 we may recollect with pride the fact of that high argument 

 having been first opened at a Meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion. 



A sad interest, indeed, attaches, in one direction at least, to 

 the progress of our knowledge in Geography. All serious 

 doubt seems to have closed now over the grave of Franklin. 

 Even in a year during which war has been claiming \ he noblest 

 victims by thousands and tens of thousands, it would .11 become 

 this Association not to mark with an expression of inr sorrow 

 and admiration the self-sacrifice of that gallant band which has 

 perished in the cause of science. But their devoti( n has been 



