17 
of Edinhirgh, Session 1862 - 63 . 
publications of a central and enduring association, A good example 
of what I here intend to indicate, may be found in a private Parisian 
Society, founded early in this century, called La Societe d’Arceuil, 
from the name of the country-house of its president, Count Berthol- 
let, where it met. It consisted of the elite of the French Academy 
of Sciences, including Laplace, Humboldt, G-ay Lussac, Biot, Arago, 
Decandolle, &c. But the Memoirs (in three volumes) published by 
this most distinguished and delightful club, including such papers 
of capital importance as Malus’s original one on the Polariza- 
tion of Light, Humboldt’s on the Isothermal Lines, Thenard on 
Ethers, and Arago on the Colours of Thin Plates, must be con- 
sidered as in fact withheld from the Proceedings of the national 
Academy, and they must now be sought for consultation in a small 
printed collection in the hands comparatively of few. It is need- 
less to add, that the Society lasted for but a few years, 
I may also include among the causes which have of late years 
affected the prosperity of our own and similar societies, that ten- 
dency to centralization which, during the last half century, has 
affected so many interests, political, social, commercial, and also 
scientific and literary. The facility of communication with Lon- 
don has facilitated that tendency to southward emigration, so long, 
and not unjustly, attributed to Scotchmen. But far from aiding 
their return, the facility seems to be all in one direction. The 
larger arena for practical talent to be found in the metropolis at- 
tracts even our writers of literary essays, and our labourers in the 
cause of physical science. It is a fact which admits of no doubt, 
that the Scottish Geological School, which once made Edinburgh 
famous, especially when the Vulcanist and Neptunian War raged 
simultaneously in the hall of this Society and in the class-rooms of 
the University, may almost be said to have been transported bodily 
to Burlington House. Koderick Murchison, Charles Lyell, Leonard 
Horner, are Scottish names, and the bearers of them are Scottish in 
everything save residence. Even the field of their labours is in no 
small measure Scottish ; and the Silurian standard is waved over half 
the length and breadth of our “ primitive” Highlands. Our younger 
men are drafted off as soon as their acquirements become known. 
Professor Kamsay was early called from his voluntary labours in 
VOL. V. 
c 
