President's Address. 



299 



Arabian fable ! How little did he, who first noticed the 

 attractive property of the loadstone, imagine that to him was 

 revealed a power which would one day guide the commerce 

 and navies of the world over the pathless seas, — which 

 would veer off the floating city, laden with the hopes of a 

 thousand human hearts, and careering over the dark waves 

 with the speed of the wind, from the treacherous iceberg 

 and the crashing floe,* — which would link together in the 

 closest bonds all the kingdoms of the earth, — which could 

 correlatively transmute all the forces of nature — and which 

 may one day render the great sea itself one mighty store- 

 house of fuel and power for the benefit of mankind ! \ How 

 little did he, who first linked together an atom of hydrogen 

 with two of carbon and three of chlorine, dream that then 

 was revealed to mankind the beneficent Elixir which would 

 cause that dread and ancient travail of the woman to cease, 

 — which would change the despairing moan and the agon- 

 ising terror of the operating table for a calm and dreamless 

 slumber — and which shall render the fame of Dumas and 

 Simpson undying, until the stream of time shall flow for 

 suffering humanity no more ! 



So it may happen that some unambitious observation made 

 here may throw unexpected light on the Geology of our 

 country, — may endow vast districts with mineral wealth 

 undreamt of, — may modify all our received views of cell-life 

 — and may put down a hard little point, on which may arise 

 the Physiology and Pathology of the future. Let us there- 

 fore go on as we have done, not urged by the desire of fame or 

 notoriety, but constrained by the love of knowledge and truth. 



* Mr Alexander Bryson has lately made a beautiful application of Melloni's 

 pile to the detection of the position of icebergs at sea — the needle of the in- 

 strument directing the steersman to avoid them. 



f The application of the magneto-electric machine to the conversion of 

 mechanical power into electricity, chemical action, &c, is at present but in its 

 infancy. Magneto-electricity has, it is true, been largely rendered available in 

 electro-metallurgy, in telegraphy, and for obtaining lighthouse illumination. 

 But the day will surely come when the vast water-power of the world will be 

 employed, through the intervention of the magnet, in effecting enormous che- 

 mical operations ; amongst which will be the resolution of water into its ele- 

 ments, and their application to those purposes for which coal is now employed. 



