lii 
FIFTH REPORT-—1835. 
study of this report. I may add that it also, as well as that of Mr. 
Challis, draws largely from foreign stores ; but if Huygens was the 
first inventor, and Fresnel the finest unfolder, and Cauchy the pro- 
foundest mathematical dynamician, of the theory of the propagation of 
light by waves; and if the names of Malus, and Biot, and Arago, and 
Mitscherlich, and other eminent foreigners are familiar words in the 
annals of physical optics, we also can refer, among our own illustrious 
dead, to names enshrined in the history of this science—to the names 
of Newton, and Wollaston, and Young—and among our living fellow- 
countrymen and fellow-members of this Association, (unhappily not 
present here,) we have Brewster and Airy to glory of. It should be 
mentioned that the author of the report has himself made contributions 
to the science of light, more valuable than any one could collect from 
the statements in the report itself, and that important communications 
in that science are expected to be made during the present w^eek, by 
Professor Powell, to a general meeting, and by Mr. MacCullagh to 
the physical section. 
(The Secretary here read a notice, which he had procured from a 
scientific friend, of the report by Professor Jenyns on zoology ; and 
afterwards continued his own remarks, as follows :) 
The remaining reports in the new volume are those by Mr. Rennie 
on hydraulics; by Dr. Henry of Manchester, on the laws of conta¬ 
gion ; and by Professor Clark of Cambridge, on animal physiology, 
and especially on our knowledge respecting the blood. Mr. Rennie’s 
report contains, 1 believe, new facts from the manuscripts of his father, 
and is in other ways a valuable statement, industriously drawui up, of 
the recent improvements in the practice of hydraulics, to the th ory of 
which science it is to be lamented that so little has lately been added: 
and without pretending to judge myself of the merits of the two other 
reports, I may mention them as compositions which I know to have 
interested persons, with whose professional and habitual pursuits they 
have no close connexion, and therefore, as an instance of the accom¬ 
plishment of one great end proposed by our Association, that of draw¬ 
ing together different minds, and exciting intellectual sympathy. The 
other contents of the volume are accounts of researches undertaken at 
the request of the Association, notices in answers to queries and re¬ 
commendations of the same body, and miscellaneous communications. 
Of these, it is of course impossible to speak now ; your time w r ould 
not permit it. Yet, perhaps, I ought not to pass over the mention of 
one particular recommendation which has happened to become the sub¬ 
ject of remarks elsewhere-—I mean that recommendation which advised 
an application to the Lords of the Treasury for a grant of money, to 
