•1 
inauoukal address. 
secretaries. To one meeting the greatest lustre was given by the 
presidency of H.R.H. the Prince Con.sort. As there is a 
brotherhood of all nationalities in science, it may be pardonable 
when from my own bit of career I allude to some experiences of 
forty-four years ago, while attending as an active member what 
might be called the German Association for the Advancement of 
Science. A flight of thought brings viiidly before me agviin 
such illustrious per.sonage.s as Schlehleu, one of the earliest 
investigators of the living cellule ; D’Alton, one of the founders 
of embryology ; Langenbeck, the great and conservative surgical 
operatoi- and his long-renowned disciple, Esmarch. There were, 
also the Scandinavians Oensted, Forchammer and Steemstrup, 
the one the main discoverer of electro-magnetism, the other 
eminent in northern geology, the third an early expounder of 
alternative generation. It is as if I hear once more the voice 
also of Kunze, the pteridologist ; of llammelsberg, a leading 
expei-t in analytic chemistry ; of Waitz, the horticultural mono- 
grapher of the Ericeai ; of Volger, one of the great authorities on 
Volcanoes; of Krauss, the zoologic Caffrarmn explorer; of 
Sondei-, one of the authors of the Cape-flora, and of Schacht, 
Roeper and Muenter, the eminent morphologist.s and phy,sio 
legists ; some of gay communicativeness, others of calmer 
reseiwedness — all spreading knowledge in their own way, all 
happy and elated among tlieir scientitic compeens, but also well 
aware, that their coming together- then might be an oirly one in 
life ! It is, as if I were brought once rnoi-e face to face with 
many a hero in science, nearly all now numbering with the dead ; 
some of whom having atteirded the earliest meetings of the 
British Association, and thus by their appeai-ance, then gi-ey, 
among a multitude of junior investigators, linked together in a 
most fascinating and exalting manner one generation with another 
in science. A felicitation could then still be sent to Oken, the 
founder. You can all enter- into the feelings of Virchow, who at 
the Berlin meeting of the German Assrjciation irr 188G, while 
unfolding to the 3000 member's once nror-e the roll-book of IS'28. 
There were the narrres of Humboldt, as President, of Berzelius, 
Ehrerrber-g, Woehler, Rudolphi, Gauss, Weber-, J ohannes Mueller-, 
Mitscherlich, Rose, Magnus, of Oersted also, and of marry 
another- scierrtitic immortality, each either a founder- of a branch 
of science or a rearer- of it into extensive vigour. W ell may 
Virchow have exclaimed, that it was as if life became infused 
orrce more into the dead signatures ! Vo doubt many a.sserrrbled 
now irr this hall exper'ietrced similar emotions, when attending 
meetings of the British Association, where they first of all, aird 
perhaps never again, saw irrdir idually some of the corypharans, of 
whom they hail ever so often Irearil and read, for whom they 
cherished atr unUruited veneratiorr, and whose nrenrory becanre 
thrrs dearer- still. Sotrre of the younger nrenrbers, now here 
