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

to the knowledge and resources which have collected their
feeble light, and brought their mysterious forms under the
cognisance of the hutnan eye—how much more curiously
do we turn from the single planet Neptune to that other
instrument which has felt as it were, and found its obseure
and distant orbit ! So long as our species remains that body
will be associated with one of the most glorious proofs ever
given of the reach of the human intellect—of the sweep and
certainty of that noble science which now honours with en-
during memory the twin names of Adams and Leverrier.
In geology, the youngest, but not the least vigorous of the
sciences, every year has been adding to the breadth of its
foundation—to the depth and meaning of its results. Pro-
bably no science has ever advanced with niore rapid steps.
In 1810 the then recent; publication of the Silurian sys-
tem," had just established those landmarks of the Palmo-
zoic world which all subsequent discovery has only tended
to confirm. The great horizons which were first defined
by the 1 hours of Murchison and Sedgwick have since dis•
closed the same phenomena which they so occurately de-
scribed in every quarter of the globe, and the generalisa-
tions foun led thereupon have been definitively established.
The same period has sufficed, partly by the labours of the
same distinguished men, to clear up the relative position
of the strata which represent the closing epochs of ancient
life and those which form the base of the secondary age.
But, above all, the last few years have seen immense pro-
gress made in our knowledge of that vast series of deposits
which usher in the dawn of existing forms and carry us on
to those changes which, though the most recent, are not
the least obscure of any which have affected the surface of
the globe. The investigations of Edward Forbes on the
laws which determine the conditions of marine zoology
have 'upplied us with data altogether new on some of the
highest conclusions of the science, while his profound spe-
culations on the centres of creation and areas of distrib

tion have pointed outpaths-ofin7q—niry which are them-
selves of inexhaustible interest, and hold out the promise
of great results. Anotherbranch of inrestigation, which,

if not entirely new, is at least pursued on a new system
and with new resous ces, has been opened up in dynamic%l
geology by the learning and
.ingenuity of Mr. Hopkins;
while the thorough elacidatiou of Ws conditions of glacier
motion, which we owe to Professor James Forbes, of
Edinburgh, has given us clear and definite ideas on one,
and that not the least important, of the agents in geolo-
gical change. The Observations accumulated during the
recent Arctic voyages have materially added to our know-
ledge of the operation of the same agency under different
conditions—conditions which we know mast once have

extended widely over the firths and estuaries near where
we are now assembled—leaving behind them those en-
.. .

during records of the glacial epoch which were first ex-
plortd by my friend Mr. Smith, of Jordan-hill. We owe
many irnpolant observations on the same phenomena
and on the various changes of sea-level to Mr. Robert
Chambers ; and if the thanks of science are due to
those who advance her interests, both directly by
adding to her store of facts or of her discovered laws,
and also indirectly by investing them with popular
interest, and thus enlarging the circle of observers,
we must mention with special gratitude the classical works
of Mr. Hugh Miller and those writings of Sir Charles Lyell
which his indefatigable industry is ever bringin4 up abreast
with the progress of discovery—a progress stimulated in no
small degree by his own exertions—and which are alike
remarkable for completeness of knowledge, for fertility of
suggestion, and for sound philosophical reasoning. I think
we cannot mistake the general, tendency of geological re-
search, whether stratigraphical or zoological. It has been
to prolong periods which had been considered short ; to
divide others which wereclassed together; to fill up spaces
which were imagined blank, and to connect more and more
in one unbroken chain the course of physical change and
the progress of organic life. We pass from geology by a
natural transition to another science, which stands to it in

close alliance. If all our most sure conclusions respecting
the superficial covering of the globe have been founded on
the classification of its animal remains, it in not less true

that our knowledge and understanding of organic structure
have been infinitely extended by the means which geology
has afforded of studying that structure in relation to its
history in past time. In the hands of our great country-
man, Professor Owen, physiology has assumed a new rank
in science, leading us up to the very threshold of the
deepest mysteries of nature. If the last few years bad
been marked by no other event in the advancement of sci-
ence, there would have been enough to signalise them in
the publication of his treatise on the " Homologies of the
Vertebrate Skeleton ;" and we may recollect with pride
the fact of that high argument having been first opened at
a meeting of the British Association. A sad interest indeed
attaches in one direction at least to the progress of our
knowledge in geography. All serious doubt seems to have
closed now over the grave of Franklin. Even in a year
during which war has been claiming the noblest victims by
thousands and tens of thousands, it would ill become this

association not t mark with an expression of our sorrow
and admiration the self-sacrifice of that gallant band which
has perished in the cause of science. But their devotion
has been emulated, under a still higher stimulus, in•the
more successful career of others; and at last in the discovery
of the North-West Passage (still so called in spite of its
having been found impassable), the courage and endurance
of Captain M'Clure and his associates have ascertained

with certainty a most remarkable fact in .the physical
conformation of the globe. Results of still larger anti cer-
tainly of more immediate interest are being arrived at by
the rapid march of African exploration—not, surely, be-
fore the time. Every part of the circumference of that
vast continent has keen either known or accessible to us
for centuries. On its soil have flourished some of the most
ancient and famous monarchies, and one of its great val-
leys is the fatherland of science. Yet up to comparatively
recent times our horizon there has been bounded by the
same sands or mountains which bounded the knowledge of
antiquity, and we had almost as little acquaintance with
its interior as had the Tyrian merchant when his eye
rested of old on the peaks of Atlas. Nothing but familia-
rity with the fact could have reconciled us to the ignorance
in which wo have so long remained of one of the largest
and most interesting regions of the world. That ignorance
is at last being cleared away; and the exertions of many
individuals, among whom the names of Mr. Galion of Mr.
Anderson, Dr. Livingston, Dr. Baikie, and Dr. Barth stand
conspicuous, have contributed results of the deepest inte-
rest and importance. No man who values science can fail
to appreciate the extension of our knowledge respecting
geography even where,, as in the Arctic Regions, that
knowledge is pursued simply for its own sake; but it be-

calms invested with tenfold interest when it brings with
it the largest influsnce on the destinies of millions of the
human race, and adds, as we may confidently hope it will
ultimately do in the case of Africa, an inexhaustible field
for manufacturing and commercial enterprise. In con-
nection with the diffusion of geographical knowledge I
cannot omit to mention the magnificent publications of
Mr. Alexander Keith Johnston, of Edinburgh, in his
" Atlas of Physical Geography." It is seldom that such
a mass of i .formation has been presented in a form so
beautiful and attractive, or one which tends so much to
place the study of geography on a truly scientific basis—
that is to say, on the basis of its relation to the other natu-
ral sciences, and those grand cosmical views of terrestrial
phenomena which have found their most distinguished in-
terpreter in Baron Humboldt. The kindred science of eth-
nology has received of late years great development, not
only by its increasing store of facts, but by the more sci-
entific use which is being male of facts which have been
long familiar. The investigation of the laws which regu-
late the growth of language promise to cast the most
important lights on the history of our rase • but con-
clusions to which that investigation may lead are still
matters of keen and anxious controversy, and are exposed
to all that suspicion which has been directed against almost
every science at some stage or other of its growth, and
which, we must allow, every.science has, at some stage or
other, justified by hasty generalisation and premature de-
duction. Of all the sciences chemistry is that which least
requires to have its triumphs recorded here. The imme-
diate applicability of so many of its results to the useful
arts has secured for it the watchful interest of tha world,
and every dayis adding some new proof of its inexhaustible
fertility. There is one department of inquiry, and that
perhaps the most interesting of all—l mean organic che-
mistry— which has received an especial impulse during the
last few years—an impulse in sinly due to the genius of one
distinguished man whom we have the honour of number-
ing among our guests upon this occasion. I think Baron
Liebig will find in Scotland that kind of welcome which a
man of science values most -a readiness to profit by his
instructions, and an enlightened appreciation among the
' farmers of the country of the practical value of studying
in their husbandry the laws which have been revealed by
his research. lam reminded, through the kindness of Dr.
Lyon Playfair, of some facts which give yet a more special
interest to this subject in connection with our meeting
here. It was to the British Association at Glasgow in
1840 that Baron Liebig first communicated his work on
the application of che.nistry to vegetable physiology. The
philosophical explanation there given of the principles of
manuring and cropping gave an immediate impulse to
agriculture, and directed attention to the manures which
are valuable for their ammonia and mineral ingredients,
and especially to guano, of which in 1840 only a few speci-
mens had appeared in this country. The consequence was
that in the next year, 1841, no less than 2,881 tons were
imported; and during the succeeding years the total quan-
tity imported into this country has exceeded the enormous
amount of 1,500,000 tons. Nor has this been a'l ; che-
mistry has come in with her aid to do the work of nature,
and, as the supply of guano becomes exhausted, limited
as its production must be to a few rainless regions of the
world, the importance of artificial mineral manures will
increase. Already considerable capital is invested in
the manufacture of super phosphates of lime, formed
of which s%
b y the
~,s solution of bones in sulphuric acid, the use
first recommended at the last Glasgow meet-
ing. Of these artificial manures not less than 60,000 tons
are annually sold in England alone ; and it is a curious
example of the endless interchange of services between the
various sciences that geology has contributed her quota to
the same important end, and the exuvim and bones of ex-
tinct animals, found iu a fossil state, are now, to the ex-
tent of from 12,0.0 to 15,000 tons, used to supply annually
the same fertilising materials to the soil. The exertions
of Professor Daubeny, of Oxford, on the same important
subject, and the continued attention which he has devoted
to it, have done much for the cause of agricultural chemi-
stry in England ; while the thanks both of agricultural and
of scientific men are due to Dr. Lyon Playfair and Pro-
fessor Gregory, of Edinburgh, for those admirable transla-
tions of Baron Liebig's works which have rendered them
accessible to every English reader, and have thereby had
no unimportant influence in extending the knowledge of
the laws affecting both vegetable and animal physiology.
I am indebted to the same quarter for the mention of one
remarkable instance of the manner in which—to use Dr.
Playfair's words- " the overflowings of abstract science
pass into and fertilise the field of industry." One of the
newest and most 'obscure sr bjects of chemical research has
been the discovery of certain conditions under which bodies
alike in their composition are neverthetess endowed with
unlike properties, and thereby become convertible to new
purposes. It is in the application of this principle that a
gentleman of this city, Mr. James Young, has succeeded
in obtaining the illuminating principle of coal gas either in
a solid or liquid state ; and it has proved to be a substance
of immense value for the lubrication of machinery, vast
quantities of it being now manufactured and sold for that
purpose. 1 hardly know whether it is strictly in connexion
with the advance of chemical knowledge that I ought to
remind you of one great discovery made long since we last
assembled here—l refer to the discovery of the effects•of
chloroform on the animal system—one which.clairus for my
friend Dr. Simpson, of Edinburgh, a high place indeed
among the benefactors of mankind. Chloroform as a mere
chemical composition had indeed Inn hum Infere, and