364 Thirty-First Meeting of the British Association. 
The sums recommended for special researches the coming year 
amounted to 2,363/. against 1,395/. last year. An Index to the 
Reports is in course of preparation, for which we observe an 
appropriation of 6007. 
Ff W from the London Atheneum the following extracts 
rom :— 
The Address of the President. 
“ Gentlemen of the British Association—Ever since my election to the 
high office I now occupy I have been deeply sensible of my own unfitness 
or a post of so much distinction and responsibility ; and when I call to 
mind the illustrious men who have preceded me in this chair, and see 
around me so many persons much better qualified for the office than my- 
gained imperishable renown in the benefit thus conferred. sr a 
enjoyments of man, I should have to refer to the present epoch as one ' 
the most important in the history of the world. At no former period 
science contribute so much to the uses of life and the wants of society. 
And in doing this it has only been fulfilling that mission which Bacon, 
the great father of modern science, appointed for it, when he wro th 
“the legimate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life be 
new inventions and riches,” and when he sought for a natural philosop y 
which, not spending its energy on barren disquisitions, “should be opera 
tive for the benefit and endowment of mankind.” Looking, then, to" 
that, while in our time all the sciences have yielded this fruit, “a 
heering Science, with which I have been most intimately connected, 
preémminently advanced the power, the wealth, and the comforts of mal 
