672 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ABSTRACT OR THE PROCEEDINGS OE THE BRITISH ASSO- 
CIATION EOR THE ADVANCEMENT OE s SCIENCE, IN THE 
SECTIONS CHEMISTRY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND GEOLOGY. 
Under the above heading we purpose to fulfil a promise 
made in our last number. It has been observed : (( As in 
physical .phenomena it is believed that modes of motion are 
the causes leading to the great visible effects, so in moral 
phenomena a system of undulations appears to mark the 
progress of mankind. As the great tide-wave of the South 
Atlantic Ocean, modified by the conditions of the shores by 
which it flows, regularly elevates the waters in all the 
harbours of our islands, so, under the influence of a spiritual 
undulation, we perceive each science rising sometimes to the 
crest, and again falling to the hollow of the wave. The 
meetings of the British Association may be regarded as the 
spring tides, which, influenced by multitudinous causes, 
rise some years higher than in others, and like the billows of 
a summer ocean, reflect more or less brightly the beams of 
the sun of truth.” 
It may not by some persons be thought that these 
selected facts, in connexion with general science, bear upon 
veterinary medicine ; but we are convinced that, in proportion 
as our profession becomes enlinked with the other divisions 
of philosophy, so will be its progress ; and although the 
most scientific man may not always prove the most suc- 
cessful practitioner in the cure of maladies, yet he will be sure 
to be the one most sought after and estimated by the public, 
while in himself he will ever possess the mind-solacing and 
encouraging conviction, that what he does is right, because it 
is consonant with right principles. 
The Chair of the Section for Chemical Science was taken 
by its President, Sir J. F. W. Herschel, Bart., who, after 
confessing his attachment to that division of natural phi- 
losophy, regretted his inability to fulfil the duties of his 
position with credit to himself and satisfaction to the 
section. However, he threw himself on their indulgence, 
adding — 
f< But there is one deficiency which I feel very much. It is the want 
of that thorough acquaintance— that sort of coup d’ceil extending over 
