855.] 



MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT GLASGOW. 



371 



emulated, under a still higher stimulus, in the more successful 

 career of others; and at last, in the discovery of the North- 

 West Passage (still so-called in spite of its having been found 

 impassable), the courage and endurance of Capt. M'Clure and 

 his associates have ascertained with certainty a most remarka- 

 ble fact in the physical conformation of the globe. Results of 

 still larger, and certainly of more immediate interest, are being 

 arrived at by the rapid march of African exploration, — not, 

 surely, before the time. Every part of the circumference of 

 that vast continent has been either known or accessible to us 

 for centuries. On its soil has flourished some of the most 

 ancient and famous monarchies ; and one of its great valleys is 

 the fatherland of science. Yet up to comparatively recent 

 times our horizon there has been bounded by the same sands 

 or mountains which bounded the knowledge of antiquity, and 

 we had almost as little acquaintance with its interior as had 

 the Tyrian merchant when his eye rested of old on the peaks 

 of Atlas. Nothing but familiarity with the fact could have 

 reconciled us to the ignorance in which we have so long re- 

 mained of one of the largest and most interesting regions of 

 the world. That ignorance is at last being cleared away ; and 

 the exertions of many individuals, amongst whom the names 

 of Mr. Galton, of Mr. Anderson, Dr. Livingston, Dr. Baikie, 

 and Dr. Barth stand conspicuous, have contributed results of 

 the deepest interest and importance. No man who values 

 science can fail to appreciate the extension of our knowledge 

 respecting geography even where, as in the Arctic regions, that 

 knowledge is pursued simply for its own sake. But it becomes 

 invested with tenfold interest when it brings with it the larg- 

 est influence on the destinies of millions of the human race ; 

 and adds, as we may confidently hope it will ultimately do in 

 the case of Africa, an inexhaustible field for manufacturing 

 and commercial enterprise. 



In connexion with the difiusion of geographical knowledge 

 I cannot omit to mention the magnificent publications of Mr. 

 Alexander Keith Johnston of Edinburgh, in his " Atlas of 

 Physical Geography.' It is seldom that such a mass of infor- 

 mation has been presented in a form so beautiful and attractive ; 

 or one which tends so much to place the study of geography 

 on a truly scientific basis^that is to say, on the basis of its 

 relation to the other natural sciences, and those grand cosmi- 

 cal views of terrestrial phenomena which have found their most 

 distinguished interpreter in Baron Humboldt. 



The kindred science of Ethnology has received of late years 

 great development ; not only by its increasing store of facts, 

 but by the more scientific use which is being made of facts 

 which have been long familiar. The investigation of the laws 

 which regulate the growth of language, promise to cast the 

 most important lights on the history of our race ; but the con- 

 clusions to which that investigation may lead are still matters 

 of keen and anxious controversy, and are exposed to all that 

 suspicion which has been directed against almost every science 

 at some stage or other of its growth ; and which, we must al- 

 low, every science has, at some stage or other, justified by 

 hasty generalisation and premature deduction. 



(Jfall the sciences Chemistry is that which least requires to 

 have its triumphs recorded here. The immediate applicability 

 of so many of its results to the useful arts has secured for it 

 the watchful interest of the world ; and every day is adding 

 some new proof of its inexhaustible fertility. There is one 

 department of inquiry, and that perliaps the most interesting 

 of all, I mean Organic Chemistry, which has received an espe- 

 cial impulse during the last few years, an impulse mainly due 

 to the genius of one distinnui.shed man whom wo have the ho- 



nour of numbering among our guests upon this occasion. I 

 think Baron Liebig will find in Scotland that kind of welcome 

 which a man of science values most, — a readiness to profit by 

 his instructions, and an enlightened appreciation among the 

 farmers of the country of the practical value of studying in 

 their husbandry the laws which have been revealed by his re- 

 search. I am reminded, through the kindness of Dr. Lyon 

 Playfair, of some facts which give yet a more special interest 

 to this subject in connexion with our meeting here. It was 

 to the British Association at Glasgow in 1840 that Baron Lie- 

 big first communicated his work on the Application of Che- 

 mistry to Vegetable Physiology. The philosophical explanation 

 there given of the principles of manuring and cropping gave 

 an immediate impulse to agriculture, and direct attention to 

 the manures which are valuable for their ammonia and mineral 

 ingredients ; and especially to guano, of which in 1840 only a 

 few specimens had appeared in this countiy. The consequence 

 was that in the next year, 1841, no less than 2,881 tons were 

 imported ; and during the succeeding years the total quantity 

 imported into this country has exceeded the enormous amount 

 of 1,500,000 tons. Nor has this been all : Chemistry has 

 come in with her aid to do the work of Nature, and as the 

 supply of guano becomes exhausted, limited as its production 

 must be to a few rainless regions of the world, the importance 

 of artificial mineral manures will increase. Already consider- 

 able capital is invested in the manufacture of superphosphates 

 of lime, formed by the solution of bones in sulphuric acid, the 

 use of which was first recommended at the last Glasgow Meet- 

 ing. Of these artificial manures not less than 60,000 tons are 

 annually sold in England alone ; and it is a curious example 

 of the endless interchange of service between the various sci- 

 ences that Geology has contributed her quota to the same impor- 

 tant end ; and the exuvia3 and bones of extinct animals, found in 

 a fossil state, are now, to the extent of from 12,000 to 15,000 

 tons, used to supply annually the same fertilizing materials 

 to the soil. The exertions of Prof Daubeny of Oxford on the 

 same important subject, and the continued attention which he 

 has devoted to it, have done much for the cause of agricultural 

 chemistry in England; whilst the thanks both of practical and 

 of scientific men are due to Dr. Lyon Playfair and Prof. Gre- 

 gory of Edinburgh, for those admirable translations of Baron 

 Liebig's works, which have rendered them accessible to every 

 English reader ; and have thereby had no unimportant influ- 

 ence in extending the knowledge of the laws afl'ccting both ve- 

 getable and animal physiology. 



I am indebted to the same quarter for the mention of one re- 

 markable instance of the manner in which — to use Dr. Play- 

 fair's words — " the ovei-flowings of Abstract Science pass into 

 and fertilize the field of Industry." One of the newest and 

 most obscure subjects of chemical research has been the disco- 

 very of certain conditions under which bodies, like in their 

 composition, are nevertheless endowed with unlike properties, 

 and thereby become convertible to new purposes. It is in the 

 application of this principle that a gentleman of this city, Mr. 

 James Young, has succeeded in obtaining the illuminating 

 principle of coal gas either in a solid or liquid state; and it 

 has proved to be a substance of immense value for the lubrica- 

 tion of machinerj-, vast quantities of it being now manufactur- 

 ed and sold for that purpose. 



I hardly know whether it is strictly in connexion with the 

 advance of chemical knowledge that 1 ought to remind you of 

 one great discoverj' made long after wc last assembled here ; — 

 I refer to the discoverj' of the effects of cblorofonu on the ani- 

 mal system ; one which claims for my friend Dr. Simpson of 



