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., 19 Chester Street, Belgrave Square, 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.

1861.

d

General Meetings.

On Wednesday Evening, September 4, at 8 P.M., in the Free Trade Hall, The Lord Wrottesley, F.R.S., resigned the office of President to William Fairbairn, Esq., F.R.S., who took the Chair and delivered an Address, for which see page li.

On Thursday Evening, September 5, at 8 P.M., a Soirée, with Microscopes, took place in the Free Trade Hall.

On Friday Evening, September 6, at 8 P.M., in the Concert Room, Professor W. A. Miller, F.R.S., delivered a Discourse on Spectrum Analysis. On Saturday Evening, September 7, at 8 P.M., a Soirée, with Telegraphs, took place in the Free Trade Hall.

On Monday Evening, September 9, at 8 P.M., Professor Airy, Astronomer Royal, delivered a Discourse on the late Eclipse of the Sun.

On Tuesday Evening, September 10, at 8 P.M., the attention of the Members was called by Dr. E. Lankester, F.R.S., to the labours of the Field Naturalist's Society, and to the large collections in Natural History placed in the Free Trade Hall.

On Wednesday, September 11, at 3 P.M., the concluding General Meeting took place in the Free Trade Hall, 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 Cambridge*.

The Meeting is appointed to take place on Wednesday, the 1st of October, 1862.

ADDRESS

BY

WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN, Esq., LL.D., C.E., F.R.S.

GENTLEMEN,-Ever since my election to the high office I now occupy, I have been deeply sensible of my own unfitness for a post of so much distinction and responsibility. And when I call to mind the illustrious men who have preceded me in this Chair, and see around me so many persons much better qualified for the office than myself, I feel the novelty of my position and unfeigned embarrassment in addressing you.

I should, however, very imperfectly discharge the duties which devolve upon me, as the successor of the distinguished nobleman who presided over the meetings of last year, if I neglected to thank you for the honourable position in which you have placed me, and to express, at the outset, my gratitude to those valued friends with whom I have been united for many years in the labours of the Sections of this Association, and from whom I have invariably received every mark of esteem.

A careful perusal of the history of this Association will demonstrate that it was the first and for a long time the only institution which brought together for a common object the learned Professors of our Universities and the workers in practical science. These periodical reunions have been of incalculable benefit, in giving to practice that soundness of principle and certainty of progressive improvement, which can only be obtained by the accurate study of science and its application to the arts. On the other hand, the men of actual practice have reciprocated the benefits thus received from theory, in testing by actual experiment deductions which were doubtful, and rectifying those which were erroneous. Guided by an extended experience, and exercising a sound and disciplined judgment, they have often corrected theories apparently accurate, but nevertheless founded on incomplete data or on false assumptions inadvertently introduced. If the British Association had effected nothing more than the removal of the anomalous separation of theory and practice, it would have gained imperishable renown in the benefit thus conferred.

Were I to enlarge on the relation of the achievements of science to the comforts and enjoyments of man, I should have to refer to the present epoch as one of the most important in the history of the world. At no former period did science contribute so much to the uses of life and the wants of society. And in doing this it has only been fulfilling that mission which Bacon, the great father of modern science, appointed for it, when he wrote that "the legiti mate goal of the sciences is the endowment of human life with new inventions and riches," and when he sought for a natural philosophy which, not spending

its energy on barren disquisitions, "should be operative for the benefit and endowment of mankind."

Looking, then, to the fact that, whilst in our time all the sciences have yielded this fruit, Engineering science, with which I have been most intimately connected, has preeminently advanced the power, the wealth, and the comforts of mankind, I shall probably best discharge the duties of the office I have the honour to fill, by stating as briefly as possible the more recent scientific discoveries which have so influenced the relations of social life. I shall, therefore, not dwell so much on the progress of abstract science, important as that is, but shall rather endeavour briefly to examine the application of science to the useful arts, and the results which have followed, and are likely to follow, in the improvement of the condition of society.

The history of man throughout the gradations and changes which he undergoes in advancing from a primitive barbarism to a state of civilization, shows that he has been chiefly stimulated to the cultivation of science and the development of his inventive powers by the urgent necessity of providing for his wants and securing his safety. There is no nation, however barbarous, which does not inherit the germs of civilization, and there is scarcely any which has not done something towards applying the rudiments of science to the purposes of daily life.

Amongst the South Sea Islanders, when discovered by Cook, the applied sciences (if I may use the term) were not entirely unknown. They had observed something of the motions of the heavenly bodies, and watched with interest their revolutions, in order to apply this knowledge to the division of time. They were not entirely deficient in the construction of instruments of husbandry, of war, and of music. They had made themselves acquainted with the rudiments of shipbuilding and navigation, in the construction and management of their canoes. Cut off from the influence of European civilization, and deprived of intercourse with higher grades of mind, we still find the inherent principle of progression exhibiting itself, and the inventive and reasoning powers developed in the attempt to secure the means of subsistence. Again, if we compare man as he exists in small communities with his condition where large numbers are congregated together, we find that densely populated countries are the most prolific in inventions, and advance most rapidly in science. Because the wants of the many are greater than those of the few, there is a more vigorous struggle against the natural limitations of supply, a more careful husbanding of resources, and there are more minds at work.

This fact is strikingly exemplified in the history of Mexico and Peru, and its attestation is found in the numerous monuments of the past which are seen in Central America, where the remains of cities and temples, and vast public works, erected by a people endowed with high intellectual acquirements, can still be traced. There have been discovered a system of canals for irrigation; long mining-galleries cut in the solid rock, in search of lead, tin, and copper; pyramids not unlike those of Egypt; earthenware vases and cups, and manuscripts containing the records of their history; all testifying to so high a degree of scientific culture and practical skill that, looking at the cruelties which attended the conquests of Cortes and Pizarro, we may well hesitate as to which had the stronger claims on our sympathy, the victors or the vanquished.

In attempting to notice those branches of science with which I am but imperfectly acquainted, I shall have to claim your indulgence. This Association, as you are aware, does not confine its discussions and investigations to any particular science; and one great advantage of this is, that it leads to

the division of labour, whilst the attention which each department receives, and the harmony with which the plan has hitherto worked, afford the best guarantee of its wisdom and proof of its success.

In the early history of Astronomy, how vague and unsatisactory were the wild theories and conjectures which supplied the place of demonstrated physical truths and carefully observed laws! How immeasurably small, what a very speck does man appear, with all the wonders of his invention, when contrasted with the mighty works of the Creator; and how imperfect is our apprehension, even in the highest flights of poetic imagination, of the boundless depths of space! These reflections naturally suggest themselves in the contemplation of the works of an Almighty Power, and impress the mind with a reverential awe for the great Author of our existence.

The great revolution which laid the foundation of modern Astronomy, and which, indeed, marks the birth of modern physical science, is chiefly due to three or four distinguished philosophers. Tycho Brahe, by his system of accurate measurement of the positions of the heavenly bodies, Copernicus, by his theory of the solar system, Galileo, by the application of the telescope, and Kepler, by the discovery of the laws of the planetary motions, all assisted in advancing, by prodigious strides, towards a true knowledge of the constitution of the universe. It remained for Newton to introduce, at a later period, the idea of an attraction varying directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the distance, and thus to reduce celestial phenomena to the greatest simplicity, by comprehending them under a single law. Without tracing the details of the history of this science, we may notice that in more recent times astronomical discoveries have been closely connected with high mechanical skill in the construction of instruments of precision. The telescope has enormously increased the catalogue of the fixed stars, or those "landmarks of the universe," as Sir John Herschel terms them," which never deceive the astronomer, navigator, or surveyor." The number of known planets and asteroids has also been greatly enlarged. The discovery of Uranus resulted immediately from the perfection attained by Sir William Herschel in the construction of his telescope. More recently, the structure of the nebulæ has been unfolded through the application to their study of the colossal telescope of Lord Rosse. In all these directions much has been done both by our present distinguished Astronomer Royal and also by amateur observers in private observatories, all of whom, with Mr. Lassell at their head, are making rapid advances in this department of physical science.

Our knowledge of the physical constitution of the central body of our system seems likely, at the present time, to be much increased. The spots on the sun's disk were noticed by Galileo and his contemporaries, and enabled them to ascertain the time of its rotation and the inclination of its axis. They also correctly inferred, from their appearance, the existence of a luminous envelope, in which funnel-shaped depressions revealed a solid and dark nucleus. Just a century ago, Alexander Wilson indicated the presence of a second and less luminous envelope beneath the outer stratum, and his discovery was confirmed by Sir William Herschel, who was led to assume the presence of a double stratum of clouds, the upper intensely luminous, the lower grey, and forming the penumbra of the spots. Observations during eclipses have rendered probable the supposition of a third and outermost stratum of imperfect transparency enclosing concentrically the other envelopes. Still more recently, the remarkable discoveries of Kirchhoff and Bunsen require us to believe that a solid or liquid photosphere is seen through an atmosphere containing iron, sodium, lithium, and other metals in a vaporous condition.