IXAUtiUliAL ADDKESS. 
3 
K<>me European standard, to be engaged actively in pursuits of 
<liscovery with a strict scientific beai-ing, 1 feel sure to express 
the feelings of all, whom professional positions or amateur-incli- 
jiation bring together on the path of knowledge, when I affirm, 
that the Association joyously and gratefully welcomes all who 
will cheer us in our aspirations, will listen to our discussions, 
and will support us by that moral influence, which every educated 
and thoughtful layman can bring to bear. Ours is a kind of 
scientific federation full of soul. Every one can help. The 
wide scope of the Association thus being renderetl patent, 
as well as the ease of access, it might next be asked by 
the uninitiated, what are the more direct objects, what the 
more immediate tendencies, what the final de.stinatious of this 
organisation, .spread now also to a flistant comer of the globe 
like ours ? As you might foretell, we accept on Australian soil 
this movement — started by an illustrious sage of Edinburgh in 
all its bearings, hopes and respon.sibilities, with perhaps this one 
preference, that, while we endeavour to follow the co.simjpolitan 
course, as adopted in the northern world, we would cherish .some 
predilection tor maintaining a command over the fields of 
indigenou.s work in these far southern regions, without any wish 
however of monopoly, but with that patriotic sense, becoming to 
us as residents in this particular portion of the British Emjjire. 
Irrespective of carrying on original reseai'ch, worthy of a country 
of juvenile f re, shness, it is our duty more especially, to instil the 
flow of information from so manifold sources near us in .such 
a manner, that new growth for further developments may 
arise through that Innpid course in all possible directions. 
We should and could arouse anew also all those, who may 
slacken, by example and by new inspiration.s. You can carry 
a spirit of research into the family-homes ; you will leave 
in many an hospitable house, which opens its doors in a 
year of choice to illustrious participators of these meetings, 
many remmiscences not less pleasurable than profitalde through 
life. I shall iiot speak here of the living among leaders In 
progressive knowledge, of those who yet are shining forth at the 
British Association also ; but J would wish to pay a word of 
homage to the dead — to those, whom many of you have still met, 
and on whose bu.sts at solemn moments we would wish, if even in 
thought only and passive pensiveness, to place also here a laurel 
wreath. Thus, among Bi-itons, such names come before our 
memory as those of J. Herschel, James Ross, Faraday, McClure, 
habine, W. Hooker, Bindley, Brewster, Wheatstone, Murchison, 
Darwin, bpeke. Carpenter, Lyell, Brodie, Gould, Livingstone, 
teedgwick, Berkeley, G. Bentham, Simpson, Proctor and a host 
of other luminaries, remindmg us hkewi.se of an early Melbourne 
University professor, who at a meeting of the British Associa- 
tion about the middle of the century, was one of its principal 
a3 
