ON THE SCOPE, TENDENCY, AND EDUCATIONAL 
VALUE OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SCIENCES. 
Ry T. Spencer Cobbold, M.D., F.L.S. 
(Delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, on Friday Evening, 
April 20th, 1860. Sir Henry Holland, Bart., M.D., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., &c., 
Physician to the Queen, in the Chair.) 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
Skyers indisposition, subsequent to the delivery of this Discourse, 
prevented my furnishing an abstract for the “Notices of the Pro- 
ceedings at the Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution ” 
as stated in their recent publication, Part X., p. 243 : I have 
therefore, according to promise, caused it to be printed in extenso. 
The interval has enabled me to introduce a few highly-finished 
Woodcuts, which will serve to explain those portions of the Address 
specially illustrated by reference to Diagrams suspended in the 
Theatre, and, at the same time, I trust, render the subject-matter 
acceptable to a wider public. 
T. S. C. 
Sir, — I purposely design that the subject proposed for this 
evening's discourse should be presented to you in the form of an 
appeal advocating and demonstrating the necessity for a wider 
diffusion of the Natural History Sciences. 
In the earlier days of scientific pursuit, the cultivators of 
Natural History confined themselves, for the most part, to the 
B 
