MAY 21 1903 



REPORT TO THE EAST OF SCOTLAND UNION OF 

 NATURALISTS' SOCIETIES BY THEIR DELE- 

 GATE TO THE NEWCASTLE (1889) MEETING 

 OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD- 

 VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



By R. Brown, F.E., R.N. 



AT the last annual meeting of the E.S. Union on the 16th of 

 July, 1889, at Alford, in Aberdeenshire, Mr. R. Pullar of 

 Perth was unanimously chosen as representative at the approaching 

 meeting of the British Association. As the time drew near, Mr. 

 Pullar found himself unable to attend; and as my name had been 

 alternatively mentioned at Alford the secretary asked me to act 

 as delegate for the Union. I accordingly visited Newcastle in 

 that capacity ; and a few of the more interesting features of the 

 meeting I will now communicate in discharge of that office. 



The proceedings commenced on Wednesday, Sept. nth. This 

 was the third time the Society had visited Newcastle, the previous 

 meetings having been held in 1838 and 1863. The objects of 

 the British Association are, as every one knows, to give an impulse 

 and a systematic direction to scientific inquiry; to promote the in- 

 tercourse of those who cultivate science in different parts of the 

 British Empire with one another, and with foreign savants * to 

 obtain more general recognition for the aims of science ; and to 

 remove all of the disadvantages of a public kind which impede its 

 progress. The Association was founded by the union, for these 

 purposes, of a small but brilliant group of philosophers ; who met 

 at York, under the presidency of the Earl of Fitzvvilliam, on the 

 27th Sept. 1 83 1. The meeting in 1889 was therefore the 59th. 

 In 1832 the meeting was held in the university town of Oxford, 

 where for the first time the work was divided into sections, four 

 in number; viz., Mathematics and Physical Science, Chemistry, 

 Geology, to which was added Geography, and Biology ; or, generally 

 speaking, into what we now call Sections A, B, C, and D. It was 



Q 



