3 



It would greatly contribute to the interest of the meetings if 

 members and their friends would kindly bring to them for ex- 

 hibition and explanation any objects of interest which they may 

 meet with from time to time, especially microscopical preparations. 



Proposed by Dr. Eastes and seconded by Mrs. Walton 



That the Report and Balance Sheet be received and adopted. 

 Carried unanimously. 



The President, Dr. FitzGerald, then gave his annual address on : 



THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN 1890. 



" There is nothing new under the Sun," so says the wise man, 

 and I suppose none of us will deny the truth of that assertion ; 

 nevertheless the discoveries and inventions with which this 

 century has been fraught, are, at any rate presented to us in the 

 guise of novelties. It is to science that we are indebted for the 

 adaptation of the old and immutable laws of nature to the needs and 

 demands of the world's ever mcreasing population. The progress 

 of science is so rapid, that the accepted theory of to-day mny have 

 to be abandoned to-morrow ; indeed, the history of science has 

 been, not inaptly termed "The history of exploded errors and 

 forsaken doctrines!" I was much struck when reading the report 

 of the British Association's meeting at Leeds last autumn, with 

 the comparison drawn by Sir F. Abel, between the scientific 

 summary of the great naturalist, Professor Owen, in his inaugural 

 address at Leeds in 1858, and that which he (Sir F. Abel), was 

 prepared to deliver to his hearers. To give you an illustration, 

 thirty years ago Darwinism was hardly known and the " Survival 

 of the Fittest" was a theory not as yet propounded ; the electric 

 telegraph was then in its infancy, and the successful laying of an 

 Atlantic cable was held to be more than doubtful. The Metro- 

 politan Railway had not then been commenced, and electricity as 

 the motive power for trains, steamboats, or tram-cars was un- 

 thought of ; the electric light was not then devised, nor was the 

 telephone or phonograph invented. 



There is no doubt that electricity is the special branch of 

 scientific research which has, during the past thirty years, been 

 of the greatest practical use to mankind. It is a curious coinci- 

 dence that the first Electric Lighting Bill was passed in 1882 in 

 the year in which the late Sir W. Siemens was president of the 

 British Association, and although much delay has arisen in the 

 practical working of the scheme, it is now in a fair way to be 

 accomplished, the delay having been of actual service in affording 



