Address of Sir William Thompson. 271 
search ought to be made with us an object of national concern, 
and not left, as hitherto. exclusively to the private enterprise 
of self-sacrificing amateurs, and the necessarily inconsecutive 
action of our present governmental departments and of casual 
committees. The Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 
has moved for this object in a memorial presented by them to 
the Royal Commision on Scientific Education and the Advance- 
ment of Science. The Continent of Europe is referred to for 
an example, to be followed with advantage in this country, in 
the following words :— 
_ “On the continent there exist certain institutions, fitted with 
instruments, apparatus, chemicals, and other appliances, which 
c 
sophical instruments and apparatus, access to which is most lib- 
erally granted by the directors of those schools, or the teachers 
of the respective disciplines, to any person qualified, for scven- 
hific experiments. In consequence, though there exist no particu- 
lar institutions like those mentioned in the memorial, there will 
scarcely be found a town exceeding 5,000 inhabitants but of 
fers the possibility of scientific explorations at no other cost than 
reimbursement of the expense for the materials wasted m the 
<< naaapgad 
rther, with reference to a remar t 
effect that in respect to the promotion of science, the British 
gations, that they are to be relied upon for the advancement of 
a) 
Versities is at the same time profitabl 
The ph sical laboratories which have grown up in. the Uni- 
Versities of Glascow and Edinburgh, and in Owens College, 
. re h; but 
it, being absolutely 
destitute of means, material or personal, for advancing science 
