The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-28 00:00:00

THE. SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY'

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

NEWCASTLE• UrON -TYNE, Aug, 27.

It was natural that, i❑ a district like this, de-
pending so greatly on the alliance of science and
industry, and in which there must necessarily be so
many, from the nature of their puksuits, familiar
with one branch or other of scientific knowledge,
the British Association should have been welcomed
with more than usual enthusiasm. The success,
however, of the opening meeting last night, and the
prospects of the week have far exceeded the most
sanguine expectations. The only damper is the
rain, which has set i❑ very persistently. The Coun-
cil at present does not appear to have secured
Admiral Fitzroy's co-operation ; and, though philo-
sophers engaged in the enforcement of a favourite
theory may be above atmospheric influences, it is
not pleasant for the 900 lathes who have enrolled
themselves as Associates for this occasion to have
to trip from section to section through the heavy
black rain, ankle deep in the coaldust and other
strata of which Newcastle mud is compounded.
The great room of the new Town-hall, most taste-
fully decorated for the occasion, was filled last night
to overflowing with a brilliant audience, gathered
together from all points of the two great mining
and manufacturing counties of Northumberland and
Durham. The address of the President was loudly
applauded, and its eminently practical character
seemed to arouse a deeper and more general inte-
rest than is often observable on such occasions. It
has been distributed in the form of a pamphlet, and
the general verdict is that it was worthy of the
occasion and the place. His remarks on the supply
of coal have created already a small sensation, and
no doubt will be fully discussed in the proper sec-
tion. If there be any ground for his forebodings,
it is to be hoped that before the meeting is over
some practical measures will be suggested for pre-
venting the waste and staving off the future defi-
ciency to which he points.

After being opened in the constitutional manner
by a speech from the chair, the Parliament of
Science applied itself this morning to the dis-
charge of business in the various sectiocs. As
might be expected, the Chemical Science and the
Geology Sections, in which there are papers to be
read on the manufactures and mines of the district,
were the most crowded. The rooms devoted to
Geography and Economic Science were also well
lled. In the Geographical Section an inaugural
address was delivered by the President, Sir R.
Murchison, in which he described in his usual com-
prehensive and interesting manner the progress of
geographical science. After referring to the vast
advances in the trade and commerce of Newcastle
and
d since great improvements in its outward appear-
ance the last visit of the Association in 1835,
and expressing his regret at the delay in the com-
pletion of the maps of the Ordnance Survey, Sir
Roderick said,—

44 Let us now cast a rapid glance over the pro-
gress of discovery in distant lands, and particularly
where our countrymen have signalised themselves.
In this wide field, wherein our knowledge has been
extraordinarily increased within the last few years,
I will limit my remarks to three or four regions;
the more so as I have recently addressed the Royal
Geographical Society at large on many collateral
topics in a discourse which is now in circulation.
Australia, scarcely known to the civilized world till
after Cook's voyages (1770-75), has of late been so
rapidly colonized by Britain, that before long she
will be no mean rival to those vast regions of North
America which were first occupied by subjects of
the British Crown. At former meetings of this
Association we have dwelt on the early discoveries
of new lands in the interior of Australia, in which
the names of Mitchell, Eyre, Stuart, Leichhardt,
and others have been always mentioned with
honour and respect. The later journeys of the
brothers Augustus and Frank Gregory have earned
for these good surveyors the highest honours of the
Royal Geographical Society, for thf it extensive re-
searches and determinations of longitude and lati-
tude in northern, eastern, and western Australia.
While more recently the bold expedition of Burke
and "Wills cost these noble fellows their lives, the
latest researches of their successors stand out as in-
deed moat singularly successful. M'Douall Stuart,
after various previous triumphs, in one of which he
reached the watershed of North Australia, has
actually passed from Adelaide, in South Aus-
tralia, to Van Diemen Bay on the north coast,
in latitude lo deg. S. Contemporaneously with
this last expedition, M'Kinlay, proceeding
also from Adelaide, reached the Gulf of Carpen-
taria, and thence travelled to the eastern shore ; and
Landsborough, realising all the value of the dis-
coveries of Burke and Wills, and penetrating from
the Gulf of Carpentaria, traversed the continent
southward until he regained the noble colony of
Victoria, in which the expedition was organised.
As I have recently dwelt at some length on these
bold adventurers in an anniversary address, refer-
ring also to some geographical determinations by
Mr. Walker, of Queensland, I will now simply
direct your attention to the huge map of Australia
which hangs upon the wall, and on which all the
routes of these explorers are laid down. The rapid
rise of the different colonies in Australia is truly
marvellous ; and, while we have successfully occu-
pied all the available ports and lands along the
eastern, western sides of this great
cosntteirnnents,owuethnaerre,, andlrejoice to say, now beginning
to extend our settlements to the north coast, the
occupation of which I have advocated for many a
year, on political as well as on commercial and colo-
nial grounds. A few years only of practical re-
searches have dispelled our ignorance respecting the
interior of this vast mass of land,
in which, though
there are wild desert tracts, there are also many
rich and well-watered oases of fine pasture-grounds,
through which the colonist may open out communi-
cations across the continent from the south and cast
to the northern shores. A short time only, I ven-
ture to predict, will elapse before towns arise at the
head of the Gulf of Carpentaria, as well as at the
mouth of the Victoria River of the north, whence,
as well as from the new settlement of Cape York,
Australians will have a direct communication with
our great Indian empire. In speaking cf the pro-
gress of these remarkable colonies, it may be con-
sidered invidious to seem to select any one for espe-
cial notice, where all of them have such high claims
to our notice. I may, however, in passing men-
tion the last-formed of these wonderful separate
Governments—that of Qaecusland, possessing a
surface six times greater than that of the
' United Kingdom, and' the very grazing grounds
of which (according to its accomplished Go-
vernor, Sir G. Bowen) arc about twice as large as
the British Isles,—to say nothing
of large tracts
peculiarly adapted to the growth of cotton. The
progress which our enterprising Austrian colonists
have made not only in wealth and material pros-
perity, bat in all that can dignify a people, was
strikingly manifestea at the last Great luternational
Exhibition. In it we caw collocated not merely
the rich natural products of gold and copper, with
admirable pictorial views which even enabled us to
imagine that we had visited the mines of our anti
podes, but we also had before us solid proofs, in the
publication of excellent maps and the catalogues of
the valuable libraries of Sydney and Melbourne,
that there is scarcely any branch of knowledge or
of industry which is not cultivated in Australia with
a zeal rivalling that of the mother country. Re-
lying on the conversations which it was my pri-
vilege to hold with the distinguished men who re-
presented the several Australian colonies on that
occasion, as well as with many personal friends who
have long resided there, I feel aseured that there is
no part of the British dominions where the people
aro more attached to the Sovereign and the British
Constitution than Australia. It has always, there-
fore, been a source of pain to me when some per-
sons have spoken or written of the coining of the
4, day when the great coleeies are to be eeperated