The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-10 00:00:00

II P.- Urn=

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1852.

Notwithstanding the jeers of many an ignorant
or injudicious caviller, the members of the British
Association still continue to hold their annual meet-
ings with honour to themselves, with advantage to
science, and with signal profit to the great cause of
humanity as involved in the problem of progressive
civilization. It has already been our gratifying duty
to comment frequently upon the development of those
noble inquiries into the various departments of
human knowledge which have signalised the energy,
the activity, and the self, devotion of the many emi-
nent men engaged in the researches adventured upon
by this intelligent and enterprising institution. We
have spoken the more earnestly in commendation of
those labours because of the peculiarly virulent, and
systematic, and infatuated nature of the hostility dis-
played towards their promoters by the enemies of the
British Association. Apart from this incentive to
eulogium, however, we cannot but acknowledge that
there are discoverable sufficient reasons for panegyric
in the importance and diversity of the benefits con-
ferred by the society upon the world at large—by the
consequent enhancement of those truths which, of all,
are the best calculated to improve the physical, and
intellectual, and, we believe we may correctly add, in
some measure also, the spiritual condition of man-
kind—we mean, of course, the sublime and awful
truths disclosed by the revelations of natural philo-
sophy. Happily it does not remain for us to an-
nounce the magnitude of the good thus secured to
the community by the elevated and ennobling toils
of the British Association. Their extent and variety
are by this time tolerably well, and pretty generally,
appreciated. If further illustration of this fact were
required it might be found, we conceive, in the mas-
terly and comprehensive Address delivered on the Ist
instant at Belfast, by Colonel SABINE, the newly-elected
President of the Association. In the course of that
remarkable document Colonel SABINE showed, beyond
the possibility of misapprehension that the achieve-
ments of the society have, in many particulars, been
really very extraordinary. They have proved at
least that the members of the Association are no
mere dilettantes in theory, or pococuranles in experi-
ment. Abundant testimonies of this might be ad-
duced from the inaugural Address here referred to,
but a selection from these will be adequate to confirm,
to the utmost desirable extent, the accuracy of our
foregoing assertions.

Colonel SABINE, at the outset of his remarks, con-
fessed himself embarrassed by the astonishing profu-
sion of subjects demanding especial notice at his
hands upon the occasion of his opening the annual
proceedings of the British Association. Almost pain-
fully conscious, it would seem, of the difficulty of his
undertaking in this regard, the President wisely re-
solved to restrict his allusions to simply two or three
out of the seven departments constituting the Sections
of the Society. By this arrangement he was enabled
to yield a graceful preference either to the subjects
with which he himself is most familiar, or to those
which might in all likelihood be brought this year
more immediately under discussion. Pointing atten-
tion, in this manner, to Section A—or in other words
to the " Mathematical and Physical" department—
the learned orator recounted the progress made in the
attempt (originally suggested by the British Asso-
ciation) to establish an Observatory in the Southern
Hemisphere with the assistance, or at least under the
pahmrdoaevstneatcntti,:o.adnn,doolffy
ahaloelnfrdAMthseEsTy's Government. A memo-
rial recommending an enterprise of this description,
it will be remembered, was presented some time back
to the Cabinet, by the Earl of RossE on the part of
the Royal Society, and by Dr. RounrsoN on the part
of the British Association. It was conceived and is
still believed—assuredly with ample reason—that
much might be expected from such an establish-
In furtherance of what Colonel SABINE
decisivelyroscienees,” termedth the
divine '‘ the
and mostsu.
premestcoietnhcee
schemet has long
to know, been triumphantly
gndoTsiwsi
snhicebpeaeo,
tne ldy. rational
Mirrors ob-
jectiono f
h calnon
of the simple and ingenious
it
readilyi
the required magnitude
contrthiveedrebnyovEatairoln RoofstshEo,
is on the spot" by means
gdanintic
apparatus for that purpose
and successfully
oewmnplogyie
spectrum telescope. Satisfied
upon this point, Colonel SABINE proposes that mea-
sures should be forthwith taken with a view to bring
speedily adopted by the Royal
the matter once moret i s under
earnestlyt h e n
tdoe
ehdeconsiderationhaodpde d
not
that
oa ft our
his
Administrators.
as by the British Association, in re-
asdoeviiceetym,
gard to a project 0 only
en, countrx's honour" but
very coupiderably to their asay wbeellvery
which must,