38 
tors pointing us to a lesson from the pages of time, from 
which we learn (to use the impressive language of Mrs. 
Somerville) that " The earthquake and the torrent, the 
august and terrible ministers of Almighty power, have torn 
the solid earth and opened the seals of the most ancient 
records of the creation, written in indelible characters on 
6 the perpetual hills and the everlasting mountains.' There 
we read of the changes that have brought the rude mass 
to its present fair state, and of the myriads of beings that 
have appeared on this mortal stage, have fulfilled their 
destinies, and have been swept from existence to make way 
for new races, which in their turn have vanished from the 
scene, till the creation of man completed the glorious work. 
Who shall define the periods of those mornings and evenings 
when God saw that his work was good ? and who shall 
declare the time allotted to the human race, when the 
generations of the most insignificant insect existed for un- 
numbered ages ? Yet man is also to vanish in the ever- 
changing course of events. The earth is to be burnt up, 
and the elements are to melt with fervent heat — to be again 
reduced to chaos, possibly to be renovated and adorned for 
other races of beings. These stupendous changes may be 
but cycles in those great laws of the universe where all is 
variable but the laws themselves, and He who has ordained 
them." 
The next Paper read was — 
ON IMPROVEMENTS IN THE GALVANOMETER, AND ON THE 
COMPARATIVE ECONOMY OF VARIOUS VOLTAIC AR- 
RANGEMENTS. BY W. SYKES WARD, ESQ., LEEDS. 
I intend in the following paper to draw the attention of 
this Society to some alterations I have made in the galva- 
nometer, which was the subject of the communication made 
