and addresses, which while replete with the deepest truths of 

 science, were still brought within the comprehension of the 

 merest tyro. Nor have all our members shown that zeal in 

 the prosecution of science which we might fairly have ex- 

 pected, for the prizes offered for the best collections in 

 Botany, Geology, and Zoology, have not been even competed 

 for. All this will, I hope, be gradually altered, for in the 

 pursuit of studies such as ours I can hardly conceive that any 

 one who has ever put his hand to the plough can ever draw 

 back. What can possibly be more ennobling than the humble 

 pursuit of Natural History studies ? Does it not engender 

 truth, candour, patience, humility, patience, sagacity, and last 

 but not least, freedom from prejudice a7id partizanship ? It is a 

 contest in which all must win. 



" Who strives, he wins, and gathers might. 



For other future sterner fight." 

 I was in hopes 1 might have told you something to night 

 of the result of the Eclipse Expedition, the preparations for, 

 and objects of which were so graphically described in Mr. 

 Acland's admirable lecture ; no authentic account has, however, 

 yet been published, and one can only glean a few particulars 

 from the newspaper reports. You remember, one of the 

 chief objects of the expedition was to determine the true 

 nature of the corona, — the white bright halo seen beyond 

 the dark body of the eclipsing moon ; whether it was an 

 effect produced by our atmosphere, whether it was a solar 

 atmosphere, or whether it belonged to the moon. The 

 weather was so cloudy, however, in Africa, Spain, and Sicily, 

 that all the elaborate preparations and expensive and delicate 

 instruments were well nigh proving useless. In one or two 

 of the more fortunate stations they were able satisfactorily 

 to determine that the corona was radially polarised, and 

 was, therefore, really a solar appendage. The strangest point 

 is its spectrum, which gives bright green lines, indicating 

 the presence of some new and totally unknown substance. 

 What is this unknown element ? Shall we ever know } We 

 know it is neither hydrogen, iron, calcium, sodium, or any 

 element we know. Can it possibly be that we have obtained 

 a first glimpse of the cosmical ether, which fills all space, and 

 in which all planets, suns, and stars float. The only spectrum 



