The Sun.
London, England, 1846-09-18 00:00:00

BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE
• ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.
SOUTHAMPTON; WEDNESDAY. Yesterday evening
a public dinner, open to all the members of the associa-
tion, took place at the long room, a large hall in which
the meetings of the mathematical section are held. The
banquet was very numerously attended, upwards of 260
members having sat down to table, but the arrange-
ments, to say the least of them, were not those of a
first-rate London hotel. There were no stewards ap-
pointed, and the guests were kept waiting in an ante-
room without seats for a full hour after the time ar-
ranged. Philosophers were, however, not expected to
complain of such trifles, and to say the truth of them
they went through the experiment made upon their ca-
pability of endurance with true professional equanimity.
Sir R. I. Murchison, the president of the association,
filled the chair.
On the right of the chairman sat Professor Oersted,
Sir John Herschel, Bart., the Rev. B. Powell, and the
Dean of Westminster, and on the left sat the Mayor,
the Marquis of Northampton, Leonard Horner, Esq.,
F.R.S., and G. Porter, Esq., president of the statistical
section. All the other foreigners who are guests of the
association were provided with places immediately in
front of the chair.
When the cloth was removed, and grace said,
The PRESIDENT, in proposing the usual loyal toasts,
referred to the interest which her Majesty took in the
proceedings of the association, and to the knowledge
which his Royal Highness Prince Albert displayed of the
several branches of science treated of at the sectional
meetings which he had attended. He then gave
" The Queen."
" His Royal Highness Prince Albert, the first and
only honorary member of the British Association."
" The army and navy."
Lieutenant-Colonel COLBY, R.E., returned thanks on
the part nitthe army. • He said-that: as they had so very
brief an interval before the hour fixed for the evening
meeting, he would not occupy their time except merely
to return thanks for the honour that had been done the
service with which he was connected. Europe had now
been blessed with thirty years:of peace, and he trusted
that that peace would long continue to the advancement
of science and the continuance of the intercourse which
now existed between them and the distinguished scien-
tific foreigners whom he saw around him.
Captain ALLEN, RN., riefly acknowledged the toast
on behalf of the navy.
The PRESIDENT alluded to the very flattering and
hospitable reception which the association had met with
in tile town of Southampton, and said he was sure every
member present would cordially unite with him in
drinking the next toast, which was " The Mayor, Cor-
poration, and Inhabitants of Southampton."—(Cheers.)
The MAYOR said he should claim the same privilege
that was accorded to those who preceded him, namely,
of net tresspassiug at any length upon their time, in con-
sequence of the very few moments that would elapse
before the time fixed on for the evening meeting. aln
returning thanks for the honour which had been con-
ferred by the toast they had just drank, he begged to
state that the authorities of the town most anxiously and
ardently desired that the association would do them the
honour of coming among them; and he sincerely hoped
they were in turn well pleased with their reception.—
(Cheers.) It was true that the people of Southampton
had not received them with any great liberality or hos-
pitality, but they knew that they had to prepare for men
of science, and that the arrangements which would be
most acceptable to the members of the association were
those tending to promote the objects for which they
laboured.—(Cheers.)
Mr. SDAPCOTE acknowledged the toast on the part of
the inhabitants. He apologised for any! annoyances
which might be felt on account of the delay which had
taken place in the arrangements for the dinner, and said
that, on the whole, he trusted they would , consider the
pledge which he had given at the Cambridge meeting,
namely,- that they would be cordially received at South-
ampton' had been redeemed.
The Marquis of NORTHAMPTON, in brief but com-
plimentary terms, proposed " The health of the Presi-
dent."
The toast was received with great applause.
The PRESIDENT returned thanks. lie felt in the tes-
timony of their applause that, humble geologist as he
was, they were satisfied with the exertions which he had
made as president of their association. He would ask
those—if there were such, for he had not much time for
reading latterly, and he did not well know what was
going forward—he would ask those who criticised their
proceedings, to look at the scientific character of the men
by whom he was surrounded. He might mention 100
names of members of that association who occupied the
very foremost rank in science, and he would ask whether
it could be said that they were not capable of directing
the whole power of their minds to the geatest objects
of the sciences which they cultivated ?—(Hear,
hear.) In a recent elaborate discourse he endeavoured
to put before them the claims which the assn.
elation had on science, and the many instances
in which they had effected objects of the highest
scientific interest, which would never have been
produced but for the energies and the money of the
members of that body. He would say to those to whom
he alluded, that if they did not look to these facts—if
they did not look the horse in the face—let them not
attempt criticising their proceedings.—(Hear, hear.)
The association at its present meeting received an im-
pulse in the support which had been extended to it by
all classes, from the Sovereign downwards, and which
could not fail to be most beneficial to science.—(Hear.)
The PRESIDENT again rose, and after complimenting
the foreign guests of the association separately, and re-
ferring to the great scientific claims of each of them,
which he had before set forth in his inaugural address,
begged to propose the health of M. Oersted, their lead-
ing member, and the other distinguished foreigners who
had honoured the meeting with their presence. The
toast was drunk with great enthusiasm.
Mr. BULLER, of Southampton, begged, on the part of
his fellow-townsmen, to offer a cordial welcome to the
illustrious foreign gentlemen whose health had been
just drunk.
M. OERSTED briefly returned thanks, and expressed
the gratification felt by his foreign friends, as well as by
himself, at the kind reception they had met with in this
country, and the great amount of valuable and interest-
ing knowledge which they had received in attending at
the meeting of the British Association.
The company then separated.
THE EVENING MEETING.
The fourth evning meeting of the association was held
at half-past eight o clock, in the Royal Victoria Rooms.
The attendance was fully as numerous and brilliant as
on the preceding evening.
Sir R. MURCHISON, the president, on taking the chair,
apologised to the ladies present for the delay of half an
hour which had taken place beyond the usual time of
meeting, in consequence of the proceedings elsewhere.
He then introduced Mr. Grove, the eminent chemist, to
the meeting. The matter selected for the proceedings
of this evening, it should be observed, comprised an
explanation by Mr. Grove of his own recent discoveries
of the decomposition of water by beat, and also an
account of M. Schonbein's extraordinary invention of
explosive cotton.
Mr. GROVE entered in the first place on an explanation
of Professor Schonbein's invention. He commenced
with a sketch of the history of explosive substances.
Though the origin of gunpowder is generally attributed
to Schwartz, a monk of Cologne, he considered it pro-
bable that the experiments of that individual were made
on explosive bodies well known for a considerable time
previously. A pyrotechnic combination called " Greek
fire" is mentioned in Arabic, Greek, and Latin
writers of the 9th century, and in the 13th century
a considerable number of such substances were
known to the Arabs, who called them " Chinese
fire" and " Chinese hail," &c.; and most probably,
therefore, owed their knowledge of them to the
Chinese. In all of these nitre was introduced, and some
of them contained the precise ingredients of gunpowder.
Professor Schonbein's discovery was not as yet secured
by a patent, and of course it could not be supposed that
the ingredients which he made use of would be commu-
nicated, but it was a gratifying circumstance that he had
in the first place come to offer it to the British Govern-
ment and the British people. The principal drawbacks
in the use of gunpowder were, that it produced so much
smoke, and left a residuum which prevented fire-arms
from being used for any considerable time without
cleansing. M. Schonbein's gun cotton had neither of
these disadvantages. It bad all the appearance of
ordinary white cotton, and was not injured by moisture.
There were two kinds of this cotton, both similar in
appearance, but one of an inferior quality which pro-
duced a small quantity of smoke, and left a slight
residuum. The other caused not the slightest appear-
ance of smoke, and left no traces whatever on the paper
from which it was fired. Mr. Grove fired off some
portions of gunpowder, and of the two kinds of cotton,
both dried and moist. In one experiment the superior
cotton when placed on gunpowder exploded without
igniting the powder, which was afterwards fired off on
the application of a heated wire. This proved the great
rapidity of its combustion, while the absence of smoke
was according to the opinion of Sir J. Herschel,
expressed at a later period of the evening, owing to the
perfect union which took place between the substances
made use of.
Mr. GROVE next proceeded to explain his own great
discovery of the separation of water into its constituent
elements by heat. his discourse was the substance of a
paper which he has communicated to the Royal Society
on this subject. Water is known to be composed of two
elements, oxygen and hydrogen, from a chemical union
of which it can be easily formed. By passing water
through a red-hot gun-barrel the oxygen unites with
the iron, which becomes incrustated with rust, while the
hydrogen is eliminated separately. This is the old
mode of proceeding, but no attempt had heretofore suc-
ceeded of collecting both the gases in one experiment,
without having either absorbed by any other substance.
The new process discovered by Mr. Grove consists in
introducing two platinum wires into the lower part of a
glass tube, hermetically sealed, and filled with water,
from which the atmospheric air has been first expelled
by boiling. The wire is then heated almost to the point
of fusion, by means of the galvanic current, and the in-
tense heat has the effect of completely decomposing the
water, the gases rising in small bubbles, which were
collected at the other extremity of the tube. As it
might be supposed that the decomposition was produced
by the action of the galvanic fluid, he next tried the