G 
IKAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
wa.s j'uled as much by laws, universal and eternal, as the move- 
ments in the planetary world. In recent days the great anatomic 
Profes.sor Hyrtl, after he saw his main work pass through eighteen 
editions and through many tran.slations, discourses still, though 
blind, with youthful enthusiasm in classic Latin on the bearings of 
medicine. 8ir Richard Owen, at the venerable age of an octo- 
genarian, evinces still with freshness of mind a keen and joyful 
interest in comparative zoography, of which he is one of the mam 
originatoi"s. A coetanean of his through the century, George 
Bentham, continued like Sir William Hooker after four scores of 
years still brisk in descriptive taxonomy for the plants of the 
world — engagements of sevei'ity, fi'om which many a young 
worker even would shrink ; the watching of discoveries in their 
speciality were to them a nev^er-ceasing fountain of delight, a 
necessity for their intellectual existence. AYhen Haydn, the 
jDredecessor of Mozart and Beethoven in composing symphonies, 
heard with great splendour the performance of his oratorio, the 
“ Creation,” one of his last works, he burst into tears at the 
passage, “ It became light,” and uttered in deepest emotion the 
words, “It is not from me, it is Divine inspiration.” The 
A ibi-ations of the Eiffel-tower, the new structure, doubly as high 
as the iStrassburg-spire, were attentively studied by Chevreul at 
an age of his more than that of a centenarian. 
Grand and true discoveries, such as may more and more also 
heie be effected, are not, like meteors, flashing brilliantly ))Ut 
ephemerously across the sky ; they are like the discerning of new 
stars of lasting I'adiancy ; and there is one mighty incitation, 
inasmuch as every achievement through progressive thought stani) is 
on it the name of the discoverer for all times, and as any single 
new achiexement m:iy have numbers of others in its se(iuence. 
Let it be instanced, what since Gah’ani’s time has been 
brought about, until with lightning’s speed electric messages arc 
now dashing in all directions through the world. It tvould be 
invidious to single out anyone connected with this glorious 
progress foi‘ special praise, unless the Nestor of electrology, Avho 
in co-operation Avith Gauss fully fifty years ago issued the atlas 
of terrestrial magnetism, and still some years eai'lier made one of 
the first efforts to span electric wires over Acide distances. 
What long ago Avas sunuised by Faraday, and later on through 
calculations by MaxAvell, has in the course of 1889 been proA^ed 
by Professor H. Hertz, of Karlsruhe, from real experiments, that 
the action of the electric current on the medium, thi’ough Avhioh 
it is carried, is the same as that prcaluced by light ; further, that 
the generation of both depemls on the same laws, and that the 
projAulsion is effected at the same vekteity. The objectionable 
hypothe.sis of “action into distance,” Avhich M'eber already 
Avnshed to aAoid A\ith I'egard to graAdtation, is overtlmiAvn by 
these ncAv demonstrations. 
