The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-14 00:00:00

resent we observed Sir William Jardine, Dr. Whewell,
Professor Phillips, Col,mid Sabine, Mr. Morckton Milnes,
qr. James Heywood, M.P., Mr. Yates, Liverpool, Mr.
leorge Rennie, Professor Penny, Earl of Harrowby, Sir
;lb:tries Lyell, Sir James Campbell, Dr. Strang, Prince
Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Count Frolich, Mr. Edward
,jheshire, author of the "Results of the Census." Mr. Wm.
Ne %march, one of the honorary secretaries' of the Statis-
tical Society of London, Sir Roderick Murchison, the Hon.
the Lord Provost, Mr. William Gourlie, &c.
The Earl of Harrowby took the chair.
Professor PHILLIPS, of Oxford, read the minutes of last
meeting, held at Liverpool, which were approved.
Colonel SABINE then read tilt.) " Report of the Council
of the British Association to the General Committee assem-
bled at Glasgow."

After which Mr. NINNIS submitted. the statement of
accounts.

Professor PHILLIPS then addressed a few words for the
guidance of the office-bearers in the various sections, and

this finished the business of the meeting.
Preparatory to the first general meeting in the evening the
Lord Provost of the city gave a brilliant entertainment in

the M`Lellau-rooms.

The following distinguished guests sat d )wn to dinner:
the Duke of Argyll, Mr. James Graham, Sir W. Jardine,
Bart., Sir Charles Lyell, Mr. James Smith, ofJordan-hill,

Hr. Walter Crum, Professor William Thomson, Professor
Anderson, Principal Macfarlan, Colonel Sabine, Professor
Phillips, Mr. John Taylor, Professor Ramsay, Mr. James
M`Lellan, Dr. John Strang, LL.D., Mr. William Glomlie,

his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, the Earl of
Elgin, the Earl of Eglinton, Sir R. I. Murehison, Sir

John Ross, Sir John Maxwell, Professor Syme, Dr. Lyon
Playfair, Dr. Allan Thomson, Baron Liebig, Dr. Retzius,

of Stockholm, M. C. Graban, Count Campello, the Rev.
Dr. Whewell, Viscount Ingestre, Lord Belhaven, Sir
Philin Egerton, Mansura Mahmund, Lord Wrottesley,
•

Dr. Rae, Lord Talbot, Professor Sharpey, M. Fremy, the
Duke of Hamilton, Prince Bonaparte, the Earl of Harrow-

by, Sir John Richardson, Sir David Brewster, Sir C. W.
Pasley, Colonel Rawlinson, Rear-Admiral Baechy, Profes-

sor Sedgwick, the Ray. Dr. Robinson, of Armagh, the
Rev. Dr. Scoresby, Mr. William Murray, Dr. Kolliker,

M. Agassiz, Mr. William Hopkins, Sir M. Shaw Stewart,

Sir James Ferguson, Sir Aichibald Alison, M. Petigot,
Sir E. Belcher, Count Frolich, Sir Thomas Hesketh, Dr.

Dickinson, and Mr. N. B. Ward.
The following address of the Duke of ARGYLL was de-
livered at the evening meeting :
Gentlemen of the British Association,—l knew, gentle-
men, that the duty of presiding over this meeting of the

British Association for the Advancement of Science has

been assigned to me mainly in consequence of my local
connection with the district and city in which we are now
assembled. It cannot, therefore, be departing from the
special duty of that position if I address you in the first
place As one of those who are receiving the honour of your
visit. lam sure I cannot express in terms too warm the
feelings of this great comuadnity. It would be strange in-
deed if Glasgow did not hold out to you a cordial reception.
Here, if anywhere, we have reason to honour science, and

to welcome the men whose lives are devoted to its pursuit.

The west of Scotland has itself contributed nut a few illus-
trious names to the number of those who have eularg-.3d the
boundaries of knowledge, or have given fruitful application

.o principles already known. I need not dwell on the fact
:hat it was in this valley of the Clyde that the patient

geniusof Watt perfected the mechanism which first gave
complete control over the powers of steam, an,i that it
was on these waters, too, that those powers were first ap-

plied in a manner which has given new wings to commerce,

and is now affecting not loss decisively the terrible opera-
tions of war. These are bat single examples, more striking
and palpable than others, of the depeadance of the arts
upon the advance of science. This, however, is a depend-

once which I am sure the citizens of Glasgow would b 3 the
first to acknowledge, and which, no doubt, with them, as
with all men, must be an important element in the value
which they set upon physical research. But lam sure I

should deeply wrong the intelligence of the people of Glas-
gow if I were to represent them as measuring the value of
science by no other standard than its immediate applica-
bility to commercial purposes. They seek to honour sci-
ence for its own sake, and to encourage the desire of
knowledge as in itself one of the noblest iustiuots of our
nature. It is my duty, also, gentlemen, to speak on behalf
of a special body—one of which Gla-gow has so much rea-
son to be proud—l mean its ancient and venerable Uni-
versity. If the mechanical arts owe to this district of
Scotland the greatest impulse they have ever yet received,
it is not less true that our knowledge of the laws which re-
gulate the pursuits of industry and determine the distri-
bution of the " wealth of nations " has been almost
founded on the researches of one whose name is indissolu-
bly associated with this seat of learning. Here, again, we
have an illustrious example of the mutual relations be-
tween science and politics in its best and highest definition.
But, indeed, our convictions are independent of each ex-
amples. It is impossible to appreciate too highly the in-
fluence which science is evidently destined to have on the
prospects of education, and we look for the time when its
methods, as well as its results, will form the subject of
teaching, not only as partially it has long done in our col-
leges, but also in the humblest of our schools. I feel it to
be no small privilsge arising out of the academical office
which this year I have the honour of holding to be able to
assure you, on behalf of the University of Glasgow, of the
deep interest with which we regard your visit, and of our
high appreciation of the awls which it is your object to
promote. It is now 15 years since the last meeting of the
British Association here. There are probably few even
annual meetings of any considerable body of men which
are not marked by some melancholy recollections. Still
more must this be the case after the lapse of so long an in-
terval —one which measures, as is usually reckoned, full
half a generation in the life of man. Among the many
vacancies in your ranks which that period has occasioned
thane are sonic which, from local association or from other
causes, are naturally impressed wore deeply on the mind
than others. lam sure that one venerable name will rise
to the memory of all who took any interest in the proceed-
ings of 1840,—0f ono whose early tastes for natural science
had only yielded before his tevotiou to a yet higher ser-
vice, but whose powerful mind still sought to found all his
efforts in the cause of religion and huulauity on obedience
to the eternal laws, which are as auto and steady in
their operation over the min Is of men and over toe
progress of society as are other laws over the sub-
jects of material change. Who can forget the zeal
and more than youthful eagerness with which Dr. Chal-
mers entered into the discussions of the statistical sec-
tion, and how he saw in those discussions the weans of
spreading the knowledge of principles which aro of vital
interest to the welfare of the State? But that name,
though the lapse of years has not carried it beyond the
regio, of regret, is one with which we have at least be:otne
familiar as belonging to the number of the departed great.
Such is not the case with other vacancies, and especially
with ono which is still affecting us with almost bewildered
sorrow and an abiding sense of irreparaule loss. Who shall
take ' the torch which has fallen from the hand of E I-
ward Forbes ? Who shall hold it as he held it to those dai k
places in the history of life which science is striving, per-
haps in vain,
to penetrate, but which seemed already open-
ing their treasures to his fine and advancing genius ? But
while sad recollections are thus forced upon us as regards
the life of individual men we have every reason to be sa-
tisfied with the inheritance they have left. Many labourers
are gone, but the cause in which they laboured has been
steadily gaining ground. Long as 15 years may be as a
period in human life, it is generally but a fraction in the
history of national progress Yet since the last meeting
of the British Association here I am greatly mistaken if
we cannot mark great strides in the advance of science. I
wish, gentlemen, you had a president more competent than
I am to chronicle that a ivance anti direct the retrospect to
a practical and useful end. There are, however, some
features so remarkable that 'cannot omit referring to them
as well calculated to raise our hopes and stimulate our ex-
ertions. In that science which is the oldest and most ve-
nerable of all—l mean astronomy—if there had been
nothing else to mark the progress of discovery, the con-
struction and application of Lord Rosse's great reflector
would have been enough to constitute an important
epoch. Its systematic operations may be said to be still
only in the first stages of their progress; yet already how
often do we see reference had to the mysterious revela-
tions it has made in discussions on the principles of that
science, and in not a few of the speculations to which
in his birth ! My distinguished friend, Sir D.
s recent Life of !Teuton, has designated
ttßhhraeeytwastreegiving
hl,
telescope. as" one of the most wonderful combina
Hong of art and science which the world has yet seen."
All who are interested iu the devotion of abilities, of
means, and of leisure to the noblest pursuits must ear-
nestly wish to see Lord Rosse rewarded by that which
he will value most—the steady progress of discovery. It
must always be remembered, however, that astronomy is
a science of which hitherto at least it might almost be said
that one great genius had left us no more worlds to con-
quer—that is to say, he carried our knowledge at a bound
to one grand and apparently universal law, to which all
worlds were subject, anti of which every new discovery
had been but an additional illustration. The reign of that
law, whether universal or not, was at least so wide that we
had never pierced beyond the boundary of its vast domain.
For the first time since the days of Newton a suspicion has
arisen in the minds of astronomers that we have passed
into the reign of other laws, and that the nebular pheno-
mena revealed to us by Lord Rosse's telescope must be
governed by forces different from those of which we have
any knowledge. Whether this opinion be or be not well
founded—whether it be or be not probable that our limited
command over time and space can ever yield to our re-
,earch any other law of interest or importance comparable
with that which has already been determined—still inside
that vast horizon there are fillings-in and fillings-up which
will ever furnish infinite reward to labour. Of these not
a few have been secured since our last meeting here. Be-
sides the patient work of our professed astronomers and
the good service rendered by such men as 11r. Lassell and
Mr. Nasmyth, who have so well relieved the business of
commercial industry by their devotion to the pursuits of
atience, we have had one event so remark-able that in the
'whole history of astronomy it stands alone. If in lookin«
at the wonderful objects revealed to us in Lord Rosse',.
4 telescope we turn instinctively sometimes from the thing
I show to the thin which oilevre=frova the spiral whim