391 



years ; and I have a melancholy pleasure in remembering that he was my 

 guest at the last meeting of the British Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science in this city. The time has gone by when Science was 

 sneered at by practical men as useless, and a matter of pure curiosity. 

 Its many applications to every-day life have of late attracted public at- 

 tention, and the wonderful economic revolutions which have been wit- 

 nessed during the last fifty years are entirely due to its influence. It 

 is not equally well known how much the other branches of our Society 

 owe to the habits of patient induction and close reasoning, which have 

 flowed from the adoption of the Baconian system. This part of the sub- 

 ject has more than once been cursorily alluded to by some of my prede- 

 cessors in the Chair ; but I trust that I shall be forgiven if I mention a 

 few instances and examples by way of illustration. I may remind you 

 of the assistance which astronomy has given to the investigators of his- 

 tory and chronology in the determination of the dates of the battle of 

 Clontarf, and of Julius Csesar's first landing in Britain, by the conside- 

 ration of the tides. I appeal to the triumphant efforts to decipher 

 hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions ; and, though last, not least, the 

 extinct Ogham character — I appeal to the use of the microscope in con- 

 firming the traditions as to the fact of the skins of sacrilegious Danes 

 having been nailed to church doors — I appeal to the light thrown by 

 chemistry on the curious questions connected with vitreous forts, on the 

 composition of ancient bronze, on the nature of the colours of the 

 ancients — I appeal to the evidences which botany and comparative 

 anatomy have brought to light on the dark periods of history, on 

 extinct animals, on the origin and habits of primaeval races. Lastly, I 

 appeal to the connexion between scientific geology and archaeology. 

 These two pursuits have always been more or less connected, but they 

 are becoming every day more closely interwoven with each other ; and 

 within the last few years the discoveries of Professor Keller, of Zurich, 

 and M. Boucher de Perthes ; the deposits of Amiens and Abbeville ; 

 the crannoges of Ireland and Scotland; the lacustrine dwellings of 

 Switzerland, Germany, and Italy; the caves of Sicily, Prance, Bel- 

 gium, and England, have displayed a new page in history of surpassing 

 interest, but in which the calmest and most honest spirit of inquiry is 

 required, in order not to be carried away by wild theories and extrava- 

 gant assumptions. 



Bat perhaps the most glorious achievement of the present day 

 is the progress of Jgeology as a science. There are still a few sur- 

 vivors of that gallant band of philosophers who founded the London 

 Geological Society. But what changes have they not witnessed in the 

 progress of their science? Beginning as pupils of Werner, they were com- 

 pelled to adopt the theories of Hutton and Playfair, based as they were 

 on Sir James Hall's chemical experiments. The early ideas as to the 

 formation of the so-called primitive rocks were completely demolished, 

 and public attention was invited to the interesting phenomena of volcanoes 

 > and the effects of metamorphism. The next step was the discovery byCu- 

 \ vier of the test derived from the presence of fossiliferous deposits as a 



