The Sun.
London, England, 1856-08-07 00:00:00

LON DON, ruuRsDAY EVENING, AUGUST 7, 1856.

BRITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD
VANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.

CHELTENHAM, AUG. 6.
The 26th annual meeting of this eminent body com•
menced its sittings this day at Cheltenham, under the
presidency of Dr. Daubeny, F.R.S. The meeting pro-
mises to be one of the most su3cessful and interesting of
any which the association has yet held, and it is indeed
gratifying to find that every year brings with it an in-
creased amount of interest in connection with the objects
and movements of the association. The directors of
Cheltenham College have placed that building at the
disposal of the officers of the association, and the most
active preparations have, for some days past, been made
to render the different school-rooms suitable for the sit-
tings of the various sections. The two largest of these
rooms have been assigned to the Geological and
Geographical Sections. Beth these rooms have been
lighted with gas, it being intended that the in-
augural meeting and the evening lectures of Colonel
Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Grove shall be held
there. Cheltenham College is admirably adapted for the
purposes of the association, and the various class-rooms
bave.been most judiciously arranged and elegantly de-
corated under the direction of Mr. Hu3all, one of the
local secretaries.

_ .
The Duke and Duchess of Argyll arrived at Chelten-
ham this morning, and, though there is a large attend-
ance of members- -of the association and a considerable
influx of visitors, there is no lack of accommodation in
the town, owing to the absence of so many of the resi-
dents, and the lodgings are better and cheaper than at
any place the society has previously visited. The follow.
ing are among the number of arrivals :—Earl of Ellen-
borough, Earl Ducie, Sir R. J. Murchison, Lord Wrot-
tesley, Lord Stanley, Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth, Sir 11.
Rawlinson, Professor J. D. Thomas, Dr. M'Adarn, Mr.
J. E. Appold, Dr. W. Gladstone, Mr. H. C. Sorby,
Professor Corbett, Professor Ramsey, Mr. J. P. Gas-
siott, Professor Harkness, Dr. N. Shaw, Mr. J. T.
Dawson, Dr. W. N. Hancock, Mr. It. Cull, Profes-
sor Steveley, Dr. Lankester, Dr. Booth, Dr. Lee, Dr.
Danbeoy, Professor Sedgwick, Professor Lloyd, Mr.
I'. Tooke, Dr. Anderson, Colonel Yorke, Mr. Tite,
M.P., Professor Phillips, Mr. J. Yates, &c.

The proceedings of the association commenced this
morning by a meeting of the general committee in the
College at 1 o'clock ; Dr. Daubeny in the chair.

Professor PHILLIPS, the assistant general secretary,
read the minutes of the previous meetings, and the re-
port of the council of association, which was ordered to
be printed.

Mr. J. P. GASBIOT moved that the cordial thanks of
the General Committee of the British Association be
offered to Lord Wrottesley and the officers and council
of the Royal Society, for the promptitude with which
they have responded to the request of the Committee of
the British Association, in granting the sum of 2501. for
the purpose of lighting the Kew Observatory with gas.
The motion, having been seconded by Mr. J. TAT-
alf of himself and the offi-
LOLR,orwdaws cßaorrrirezdstuznya,noimnobueshly
cers and council of the Royal Society, acknowledged
the vote of thanks.

The General Treasurer (Ur. J. Taylor) then read the
following account -
THE GENERAL TREASURER'S ACCOUNT, FROM SEPT. 12,
185;5 (GLASGOW MEETING), TO AUG. 6, 1356, AT CREL-
TENHAM.

lington and Lord Stanley were elected to fill the vacan-
cies in the committee occasioned by the deaths of Ea
Cathcart and Sir John Johnstone.
Professor PHILLIPS moved the appointment of the fol-
lowing officers of the different sections :
SECTION A,--MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
President—Rev. R. Walker, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents
—Rev..B. P. Price, F.R.S., Sir W. Snow Harris, F. R. S.,
Rev. W. Whe well, F.R.S., and the Rev. H. Lloyd.
Secretaries—Professor Stevelly, Mr. C. Burke, F.R.S.,
Rev. T. A. Southwood, Rev. J. C. Turnbull.
SECTION B.—CHEMICAL SCIENCE.
President—Mr. B. C. Brodie, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents
—Mr. N. S. Maskelyne, F.G.S , Mr. W. Gregory,
F.R.S., Mr. Lyon Playfair, F.R.S., the Master of the
Mint, Dr. Miller, and Dr. Anderson, Secretaries--Mr.
P. Woraley, Professor Voelker, and Mr. J. Horsley.
SECTION C.—,GEOLOGY.
President—Mr. A. C. Ramsey, F.R.S. Vice-Presi-
dents—Rev. Professor Sedgwick, Mr. J. Hamilton, and
Mr. J. P. Jukes. Secretaries—Rev. S. B. Brodie, Mr.
T. Wright, and Mr. J. Scongall.
SECTION D.—ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, INCLUDING Pay.
SIOLOGY.
President —Mr. T. Bell, F.R.S. Vice-Presidents--
Rev. L. Jenyns, Dr. 'Robert Ball, Mr. J. E. Grey,
F.R.S. ; Professor Balfour, and Professor Henslow.
Secretaries—Mr. E. Lankester, F.R.S. ; Mr. J. Buck-
man, F.G.S. ; and Dr. J. Abercrombie.
SECTION E.--GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY.
President—Sir H. C. Rawlinson, F.R.S. Vice-Presi-
dents—Sir J. Davies and Sir R. J, Murchison, F.R.S.
Secretaries.—Dr. Norton Shaw, Mr. Richard Bull, Mr.
F. D. Ragland, F.R.C.S., and Mr. H. W. Ramsey,
F.R.C.S.

. .
SECTION F.—STATISTICS.
President.—Lord Stanley. Vice-Presidents.—Dr.
John Strang, Mr. T. Torke, F.R.S., Mr. W. Tite,
Mr. J. T. Dawson, and Mr. J. Heywood, M.P., F.R.S.
Secretaries.—fir. W. Newrnarch, Mr. E. Cheshire,
Rev. C. H. Bromley, Mr. W. M. Tartt, and Professor
Handeock.

SECTION G.—MECHANICAL StIENCE,
President.—Mr. G. Rennie, F.R.S. Vice• Preside

Mr. J. Nasmyth, F.R.S., and Mr. J. Taylor, F.R.S.
Secretaries.—Mr. C. Atherton, Mr. aM. Jeffrey; and
Mr. B. Jones, jun.
The following letter, in explanation of a proposal to
change the title of one of the sections, addressed to the
general secretary by Mr. R. M. Milnes, M.P., D.C.L.,
president of the Statistical Seclion at Glasgow, 1855,
was then read by Professor Phillips :
" Dear General Sabine,—At the last meeting of the Bri-
tish Association I gave notice of my intention to propose
at the Cheltenham meeting, that the Section of ' Statis-
tics' should in future be entitled the Section of Economic
Science and Statistics.'
"I am desirous that this change should be effected, be-
cause I think it will bring the objects of the section more
legitimately within the scope of the association. Political
economy is now recognised as a science, not only by the
establishment of chairs in the chiJf universities of Europe,
but also by the confirmation which experience has given to
its principles and deductions. At the same time it is im-
portant that public attention should in every way be at-
tracted to its study at a time when its terminology, neces-
sarily imperfect from the period of its formation, is under-
going considerable revision, and when the investigations,
now in progress on the Continent and in the United States
are subjecting the doctrines of the most distinguished Bri-
tish founders to a severe and often hostile scrutiny.
"At the same time I do not wish to give up the word
statistics,' because its retention enables the section use-
fully to entertain many subjects of general interest which the
wholesome abstinence of the association from political and
moral questions must otherwise exclude. I believe the
public has derived great advantage from the materials of
social and economical- truths gathered together and pre-
sented at the meetings, and would see with regret any
further limitation of its objects.
"I shall be glad if the general committee of the associa-
tion think fit to adopt the alteration which I propose, and
I remain, dear General Sabine, yours very sincerely,
"RICHARD MONCIC
"16, Upper Brook-street, July id."
TON MILNER.
After some conversation, the committee agreed to
change the title of Section F from " Statistics" to
"Economic Science and Statistics," upon the motion of
Mr. NEWHARCH, in the absence of Mr. R. M. Milnes.
Mr. HOLLAND, M.P., on behalf of the inha'iitauts of
Cirencester, invited the association to visit and examine
the Roman remains in and near that town and also the
Museum and Agricultural College on Saturday next.
The invitation was accepted, and the thanks of the
committee were given to Mr Holland and the inhabi•
tants of Cirencester.
The meeting then brake up, having sat one hour.

cerned at the rapid destruction of the trees which yield
the Peruvian bark, limited though they be to a very
narrow zone and to a certain definite elevation on either
side of the equator. Already, indeed, chemistry has
given token of her powers by threatening to alt,:r the
course of commerce, and to reverse the tide of human
industry. Thus she has discovered, it is said, a substitute
for the cochineal insect in a beautiful dye producible
from guano. She has shown that our supply of animal
food might be obtained at a cheaper rate from the anti-
podes by simply boiling down the juices of the flesh of
cattle now wasted and thrown aside in those countries,
and importing the extract in a state of concentration.
She has pointed out that one of the earths which consti-
tute the principal material of our globe contains a metal
as light as glass, as malleable and ductile as copper, and
as little liable to rust as silver; thus possessing proper-
ties so valuable that, when means have been found of
separating it economically from its ore, it will be capable
of superseding the metals in common use, and thus of
rendering metallurgy an employment not of certain dis.
tricts only, but of every part of the earth to which
science and civilisation have penetrated. And may I not
also say that she has contributed materially towards the
advancement of those arts in which an agricultural coun-
try like this is especially interested ? It is not often that
the same individual has reaped a high reputation at once
by establishing general principles in science and by ren-
dering popular their application to practice. .
But Baron Liebig stands equally distinguished for. his
ingenuity in devising new methods of analysi4, for his
originality in propounding great theoretical principles in
science, and for his happy talent in applying these prin-
ciples to purposes of practical utility."
Referring to the discussions which have taken placefor
sometime past between this distinguished foreigner and
certain experimental agriculturists in Eiigland with
regard to the principles that ought to regulate the
manuring of land, Dr. Daubeny proceeded :
" In so far as concerns the relative advantages of
mineral and ammoniacal manures, I presume there is
little room for controversy ; for, although most soils
may contain a sufficiency of the inorganic constituents
required by the crop, it by no means follows that the
latter are always in an available condition and hence
it may well happen that in most cases in which land has
been long under cultivation, the former class of manures
becomes, as Baron Liebig asserts, a matter of paramount
necessity. Now, that the same necessity exists for the
addition of ammoniacal manures can hardly be con-
tended when we reflect that, at the first commencement
of vegetable life, every existing species of plant must
have obtained its nourishment, solely from the gaseous
constituents of the atmosphere, and from the mineral
contents of the rock in which it vegetated. The only
divergence of opinion, therefore, that can arise relates
to the degree of their respective utility in the existing
state of our agriculture, and to the soundness of Baron
Liebig's position, that a plant rooted in a soil well
charged with all the requisite mineral ingredients, and
in all other respects in a condition calculated to allow of
healthy vegetation, may sooner or later be able to draw
from the atmosphere whatever else is required for its full
development. And does not, I would ask, this latter
position derive some support from the luxuriant vegeta-
tion of the tropics, where art certainly contributes no-
thing towards the result? And is it not also favoured by
such experiments as those carried on at Lois Weedon in
Northamptonshire, where the most luxuriant wheat crops
have been obtained for a number of consecutieeyears with-
out manure of any kind, simply by following out the Tul-
lien system of stirring up and pulverising the soil ? How,
too, are we to explain that capacity of subsisting without
any artificial supply of ammonia which Mr. Lawes is led
by his experiments to attribute to turnips and other
plants of similar organisation, unless we assume that the
power residing in the leaves of absorbing ammonia from
the air may render plants, in some cases at.least, inde-
pendent of any extraneous aid ? . . . Still the prac-
tical question remains whether, admitting the theoretical
&iris of Baron Liebig's position, a larger expenditure of
capital will not be required for bringing a given farm
into a condition to dispense with ammoniacal manures
than for procuring those materials which contain that
ingredient ready for use. And here experimental re-
searchei, such as those conducted on so extended and
liberal a scale by Mr. Lawes and Dr. Gilbert, come in
aid of theory. They stand, as it were, midway between
the abstract principles which science points out to the
farmer and the traditional usages with respect to his art
which have been handed down to him from one genera.
tion to another. They bear the same relation to the
farmer which the records of the clinical practice in a
large infirmary do to the general principles of medicine
expounded by the modern physiologist." Having
awarded a meed of praise to the researches carried on
iu our own country, and especially those conducted
under the auspices of the Highland Society by Dr. An-
dersen ; at our own Agricultural College, by Professor
Voelcker ; and through the aid of the Royal Agricul-
tural Society by their consulting chemist, Mr. Way, the
President next approached the departments of botany
and vegetable physiology. In these branohes of natural
science he observed that—

"It cannot, perhaps, be said that whole provinces
have been added to the domain of the science since the
period alluded to, as we have seen to be the case in our
review of the progress of chemistry. As long ago as
the year 1832 the elder De Candolle, who, if not the
most original or the most profound of the botanists of
his day, was at least the most conspicuous for the wide
range of his information, and for his happy talent of
imparting it to others, published that admirable work
on vegetable physiology which, even at the present time,
is capable of serving as a most useful guide in many
branches of the subject. And yet what a mass of impor-
tant information has been brought together since that
period ! The improvements in the microscope which
have since taken place render us familiar with particu-
lars relating to the structure and functions of the vege-
t able creation which the ruder methods of investigation
fore resorted to would never have revealed to us. We
a, ito them the interesting discoveries of Brown and
Ao. Aphe Brongniart as to the mode in which the pollen
is l :ought into immediate contact with the ovules, by
means of the tubes which it protrudes by a prolongation
of the innermost of its two investing membranes. . .
While the researches of Brown and others have shown
there is no abrupt line or division in the vegetable king-
dom, and that one common structure pervades the
whole, the later inquiries of Suminski, Hofmeister,
Unger, Griffith, and Henfre, have pointed out several
curious and unlooked-for analogies between plants and
animals. I may mention, in the first place, as an in-
stance of this analogy between plants and animals,
the existence of moving molecules or phytosperms in the
antheridia of ferns and other cryptogarns, borne out as
it has been in so remarkable a manner by the almost
simultaneous observations of Bischoff and Aeiseuer on
the egg, confirmatory of those formerly announced by
Barry, and Newport, and by the researches of Suminski,
Thuret, and Pringsheim, with respect to the ovule •f
plants. I may refer you also to a paper read at the
last meeting of the association by Dr. Cohn, of Breslau,
who, in bringing this subject before the Natural History
Section, adduced instances of a distinction of sexes which
had;corne under his observation in the lower Algza
Ire like manner a curious correspondence has been traced
between the lower tribes of animals and plants in the
circumstance of both being subject to the law of what
is called alternate generation
To the elder De Candolle we are also indebted for
some of our most philosophical views with re-
spect to the laws which regulate the distribution
of plants over the globe—views which have been
developed and extended, but by no means sub-
verted, by the investigation of subsequent writers ;
among whom Sir Charles Lyell, in his Principles of
riology, and the younger De Candolle, a worthy inheri-
tor of his father's reputation, in his recently published
work on Botanical Geography, have especially signalised
themselves. But it is to the late Professor Edward For-
bes, and to Dr. Joseph Hooker, that we have principally
to attribute the removal of those anomalies whieh threw
a certain degree of doubt upon the principles laid down
by Da Candolle in 1820, in his celebrated article on the
Geography of Plants, contained in the Dictionnaire des
Sciences Naturelles, where the derivation of each species
from an individual, or a pair of individuals, created in
one particular locality, was made the starting-point of
all our inquiries Geology, by pointing out
the probability of the submergence of continents on the
one hand and the elevation of tracts of land on the other,
enables us to explain the occurrence of the same plants
in some islands or continents now wholly unconnected,
and the existence of a distinct flora in others too isolated
to obtain it under present circumstances from without.
• • .An inquiry has been carried on for the last ;
15 years under the auspices of and with the aid of funds
supplied by this association, the results of which, it is
but fair to say, by no means corroborate the reports that
had been from time to time given us with respect to the
extreme longevity of certain seeds, exemplified, as it was I
said, in the case of the mummy wheat and other some-
what dubious instances ; inasmuch as they tend to show
that none of the seeds which were tested, although they
hed been placed under the most favourable artificial con-
ditions that could be devised, vegetated after a period of
40 years ; that only 20 out of 288 species did so after 20
years ; while by far the larger number had lost their ger-
minating power in the course of ten."
Having described some of the services rendered to
botanical science by the late Professor Forbes, Dr. J.
Hooker, and Dr. Thomson, the president continued :
"The will which confines the variations in the vege-
table structure within a certain range, lest the order
of creation should be disturbed by the introduction of an
indefinite number of intermediate forms, is apparently
the earns in its motive as that•which brings back the
celestial luminaries to their original orbits after the com-
pletion of a cycle of changes induced by their mutual
perturbations ; it is the same which says to the ocean,
thus far shalt thou go, and no further ;' and to the
winds your violence, however apparently capricious
and abnormal, shall nevertheless bo constrained within
certain prescribed limits '—
Ni facia, maria et terras ccenemque profundum
Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras.'

• • • • • • • • •
" The law, indeed, seems to be nothing else than a
direct consequence of that unity of design pervading the
universe, which so bespeaks a common Creator—of the
existence in the mind of the Deity of a sort of archetype
to which His various works have all to a certain extent
been accommodated ; so that the earlier forms of life
myy ba regarded as tying of thole of later creatiga, and