1S/9-I 
British Association . 
627 
rights of a patentee than those of a landowner, though the 
boundaries, water-rights, and easements of estates have been 
a fruitful source of litigation. But if we, on that account, 
decline to recognise property in invention, we follow the 
example of a certain examinee — we will not say student — 
who, being unable to classify certain mineralogical speci- 
mens, got over the difficulty by throwing them away. 
If the advocates of free-booting still refuse to recognise 
the property of the inventor in his creation, they should at 
least produce some more pertinent arguments in defence of 
their position. It is mainly by priority in invention that 
England’s old industrial supremacy was gained, and if it is 
to be retained, or rather re-conquered, invention alone can 
point the way. A Bessemer, a Siemens, or a Perkin, is of 
more value to the country than all the professors of political 
economy and all the chambers of commerce that ever 
existed. 
VII. THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 
Sheffield Meeting. 
HE Meeting of the British Association at Sheffield, 
which closed on the 28th ult., though not so largely 
attended as the Dublin Meeting of last year, proved 
a very successful one. The arrangements of the Local 
Committee, of which Dr. H. C. Sorby, F.R.S., and Mr. J. 
F. Moss were the Secretaries, gave great satisfaction, and 
never has the Association been received with greater hospi- 
tality than by the Mayor and inhabitants of Sheffield. 
At the concluding meeting it was announced that the 
grants of money appropriated to scientific purposes by the 
General Committee amounted to £960. The following is a 
list of the grants: — A. Mathematics and Physics: Dr. 
Lodge, new form of high insulation key, £10; Prof. Adams, 
standard of white light, £20 ; Prof. Everett, underground 
temperature, -£10 ; Dr. Joule, determination of the me- 
chanical equivalent of heat, £50 ; Sir W. Thomson, elasti- 
city of wire, £50 ; Mr. Glaisher, luminous meteors, £30 ; 
Mr. G. H. Darwin, lunar disturbance of gravity, £30 ; Prof. 
Sylvester, fundamental invariants, £50 ; Mr. j. Perry, laws 
