SECOND 
REPORT. 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE GENERAL MEETING. 
1832. 
On Monday, the 18th of June 1832, the British Association 
commenced its sittings at Oxford, in the rooms of the Clarendon 
Buildings, and proceeded to the election of candidates, recom¬ 
mended by the General Committee. In the Evening a numerous 
assembly of Members met together in the same apartments. 
On Tuesday, at one o’clock p.m., the Chair was taken in the 
Theatre, by the President, Viscount Milton, who opened the 
business of the Meeting by a speech to the following effect: 
“ Gentlemen, 
“Feeling as I did, when called upon to preside over the 
first Meeting of this Association, the insufficiency of the indivi¬ 
dual chosen for that office, and knowing that the choice was to 
be attributed not to any merits or any desire of my own, but to 
the circumstance of my official connexion with the Society by 
whose invitation that Meeting had been collected,—how much 
more must I feel sensible of the difficulty of the situation in 
which your kindness has placed me, when I find myself called 
upon to address you in this Theatre, within the walls in which 
are transacted the most important concerns of this great and 
august University! That difficulty, however, is much lightened 
by the consideration, that on the present occasion my almost 
only duty is to resign the office with which I have been invested, 
which will now devolve into hands more competent to wield it, 
and on shoulders whose strength is more capable of bearing its 
burthen. The difficulty also is lightened to me, Gentlemen, by 
the consideration that I am addressing an audience upon whom it 
