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 ! f 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. 
t 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 vrill surely come w^hen the vast water-povs^er 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. 
