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Extracts from Resolutions of the General Committee.

Committees and individuals, to whom grants of money for scientific purposes have been entrusted, are required to present to each following meeting of the Association a Report of the progress which has been made; with a statement of the sums which have been expended, and the balance which remains disposable on each grant.

Grants of pecuniary aid for scientific purposes from the funds of the Association expire at the ensuing meeting, unless it shall appear by a Report that the Recommendations have been acted on, or a continuation of them be ordered by the General Committee.

In each Committee, the Member first named is the person entitled to call on the Treasurer, William Spottiswoode, Esq., 50 Grosvenor Place, London, S.W., for such portion of the sum granted as may from time to time be required. In grants of money to Committees, the Association does not contemplate the payment of personal expenses to the members.

In all cases where additional grants of money are made for the continuation of Researches at the cost of the Association, the sum named shall be deemed to include, as a part of the amount, the specified balance which may remain unpaid on the former grant for the same object.

General Meetings.

On Wednesday Evening, August 22, at 8 P.M., in the Theatre, Professor John Phillips, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., resigned the office of President to William R. Grove, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., who took the Chair, and delivered an Address, for which see page liii.

On Thursday Evening, August 23, at 8 P.M., a Soirée took place in the Exhibition Building.

On Friday Evening, August 24, at 8.30 P.M., in the Theatre, William Huggins, Esq., delivered a Discourse on the "Results of Spectrum Analysis as Applied to the Heavenly Bodies."

On Monday Evening, August 27, at 8.30 P.M., in the Theatre, Joseph Hooker, Esq., M.D., F.R.S., delivered a Discourse on "Insular Floras.”

On Tuesday Evening, August 28, at 8 P.M., a Soirée took place in the Exhibition Building.

On Wednesday, August 29, at 3 P.M., the concluding General Meeting took place, when the Proceedings of the General Committee, and the Grants of Money for Scientific purposes, were explained to the Members.

The Meeting was then adjourned to Dundee*.

* The Meeting is appointed to take place on Wednesday, September 4, 1867.

ADDRESS

OF

WILLIAM ROBERT GROVE, Esq., Q.C., M.A., F.R.S.,

PRESIDENT.

If our rude predecessors, who at one time inhabited the caverns which surround this town, could rise from their graves and see it in its present state, it may be doubtful whether they would have sufficient knowledge to be surprised.

The machinery, almost resembling organic beings in delicacy of structure, by which are fabricated products of world-wide reputation, the powers of matter applied to give motion to that machinery, are so far removed from what must have been the conceptions of the semibarbarians to whom I have alluded, that they could not look on them with intelligent wonder.

Yet this immense progress has all been effected step by step, now and then a little more rapidly than at other times; but, viewing the whole course of improvement, it has been gradual, though moving in an accelerated ratio. But it is not merely in those branches of natural knowledge which tend to improvements in economical arts and manufactures, that science has made great progress. In the study of our own planet and the organic beings with which it is crowded, and in so much of the universe, as vision, aided by the telescope, has brought within the scope of observation, the present century has surpassed any antecedent period of equal duration.

It would be difficult to trace out all the causes which have led to the increase of observational and experimental knowledge.

Among the more thinking portion of mankind the gratification felt by the discovery of new truths, the expansion of faculties, and extension of the boundaries of knowledge have been doubtless a sufficient inducement to the study of nature; while, to the more practical minds, the reality, the certainty, and the progressive character of the acquisitions of natural science, and the enormously increased means which its applications give, have impressed its importance as a minister to daily wants and a contributor to ever-increasing material comforts, luxury, and power.

Though by no means the only one, yet an important cause of the rapid advance of science is the growth of associations for promoting the progress either of physical knowledge generally, or of special branches of it. Since the foundation of the Royal Society, now more than two centuries ago, a vast number of kindred societies have sprung up in this country and in Europe. The advantages conferred by these societies are manifold; they enable those who are devoted to scientific research, to combine, compare, and

check their observations, to assist, by the thoughts of several minds, the promotion of the inquiry undertaken; they contribute from a joint purse to such efforts as their members deem most worthy; they afford a means of submitting to a competent tribunal notices and memoirs, and of obtaining for their authors and others, by means of the discussions which ensue, information given by those best informed on the particular subject; they enable the author to judge whether it is worth his while to pursue the subjects he has brought forward, and they defray the expense of printing and publishing such researches as are thought deserving of it.

These advantages, and others might be named, pertain to the Association the 36th Meeting of which we are this evening assembled to inaugurate; but it has, from its intermittent and peripatetic character, advantages which belong to none of the societies which are fixed as to their locality.

Among these are the novelty and freshness of an annual meeting, which, while it brings together old Members of the Association, many of whom only meet on this occasion, always adds a quota of new Members, infusing new blood, and varying the social character of our meetings.

The visits of distinguished foreigners, whom we have previously known by reputation, is one of the most delightful and improving of the results. The wide field of inquiry, and the character of communications made to the Association, including all branches of natural knowledge, and varying from simple notices of an interesting observation or experiment, to the most intricate and refined branches of scientific research, is another valuable characteristic.

Lastly, perhaps the greatest advantage resulting from the annual visits. of this great parliament to new localities is that, while it imparts fresh local knowledge to the visitors, it leaves behind stimulating memories, which rouse into permanent activity dormant or timid minds--an effect which, so far from ceasing with the visit of the Association, frequently begins when that visit terminates.

Every votary of physical science must be anxious to see it recognized by those institutions of the country which can to the greatest degree promote its cultivation and reap from it the greatest benefit. You will probably agree with me that the principal educational establishments on the one hand, and on the other the Government, in many of its departments, are the institutions which may best fulfil these conditions. The more early the mind is trained to a pursuit of any kind, the deeper and more permanent are the impressions received, and the more service can be rendered by the students.

"Quo semel est imbuta recens servabit odorem

Testa diu."

Little can be achieved in scientific research without an acquaintance with it in youth; you will rarely find an instance of a man who has attained any eminence in science who has not commenced its study at a very early period of life. Nothing, again, can tend more to the promotion of science than the exertions of those who have early acquired the 00s resulting from a scientific education. I desire to make no complaint of the tardiness with which science has been received at our public schools and, with some exceptions, at our Universities. These great establishments have their roots in historical periods, and long time and patient endeavour is requisite before a new branch of thought can be grafted with success on a stem to which it is exotic. Nor should I ever wish to see the study of languages, of history, of all those refined associations which the past has transmitted to us, ne

glected; but there is room for both. It is sad to see the number of so-called educated men who, travelling by railway, voyaging by steamboat, consulting the almanac for the time of sunrise or full-moon, have not the most elementary knowledge of a steam-engine, a barometer, or a quadrant; and who will listen with a half-confessed faith to the most idle predictions as to weather or cometic influences, while they are in a state of crass ignorance as to the cause of the trade-winds or the form of a comet's path. May we hope that the slight infiltration of scientific studies, now happily commenced, will extend till it occupies its fair space in the education of the young, and that those who may be able learnedly to discourse on the Eolie digamma will not be ashamed of knowing the principles on which the action of an air-pump, an electrical machine, or a telescope depends, and will not, as Bacon complained of his contemporaries, despise such knowledge as something mean and mechanical.

To assert that the great departments of Government should encourage physical science may appear a truism, and yet it is but of late that it has been seriously done; now, the habit of consulting men of science on important questions of national interest is becoming a recognized practice, and in a time, which may seem long to individuals, but is short in the history of a nation, a more definite sphere of usefulness for national purposes will, I have no doubt, be provided for those duly qualified men who may be content to give up the more tempting study of abstract science for that of its practical applications. In this respect the Report of the Kew Committee for this year affords a subject of congratulation to those whom I have the honour to address. The Kow Observatory, the petted child of the British Association, may possibly become an important national establishment; and if so, while it will not, I trust, lose its character of a home for untrammelled physical research, it will have superadded some of the functions of the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade with a staff of skilful and experienced observers.

This is one of the results which the general growth of science, and the labours of this Association in particular, have produced; but I do not propose on this occasion to recapitulate the special objects attained by the Association, this has been amply done by several of my predecessors; nor shall I confine my address to the progress made in physical science since the time when my most able and esteemed friend and predecessor addressed you at Birmingham. In the various reports and communications which will be read at your Sections, details of every step which has been made in science since our last Meeting will be brought to your notice, and I have no doubt fully and freely discussed.

I purpose, with your kind permission, to submit to you certain views of what has within a comparatively recent period been accomplished by science, what have been the steps leading to the attained results, and what, as far as we may fairly form an opinion, is the general character pervading modern discovery.

It seems to me that the object we have in view would be more nearly approached, by each President, chosen as they are in succession as representing different branches of science, giving on these occasions either an account of the progress of the particular branch of science he has cultivated, when that is not of a very limited and special character, or enouncing his own view of the general progress of science; and though this will necessarily involve much that belongs to recent years, the confining a President to a mere résumé of what has taken place since our last Meeting would, I

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