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the more complex one but as developments of rudimentary
parts existing in the more simple. Here, too, we may
perhaps trace an analogy with His dealings with man-
kind, as unfolded in His revealed word; from which we
find that the earlier events recorded are often typical of
those more modern, and that Christianity itself is in
some sense a development of the Jewish dispensation
which preceded it."
Turning his attention next to geology, Dr. Daubeny
said :
"This science has during the last 20 years made such
rapid strides that those who endeavoured from an
early period of lite to !follow at a humble distance the
footsteps of the groat leaders in that science, obeying
the impulse of such zealous and ardent spirits as the
one now, alas ! by jthe inscrutable decrees of Provi.
dence, lost to his friends and to science, who consti-
tuted the head of what was once called, I hope not
too grandiloquently, the Oxford School of Geology,
have, if I may judge of others by myself, been often
distanced in the race, and when they endeavoured to
make good their lost ground found themselves trans-
ported into a new, and, to them, almost unknown
region. Thus the thorough exploration which has taken
place of the Silurian and Cambrian systems, through the
exertions of two of our oldest and most valued associates,
has added a new province—ought I not rather to say, a
new kingdom !—to the domain of geology, and has car-
ried back the records of the creation to a period pre-
Viously as much unknown to us as were the annals of
the Assyrian dynasties before the discoveries of Sir H.
Rawlinson."
Among the principles recently regarded as axioms in
geology none seemed so little likely to be disputed as
this :--
" That the classes of animals and vegetales which
possessed the most complicated structure were preceded
by others of a more simple one ; and that when we traced
back the succession of beings to the lowest and the ear-
liest of the sedimentary formations, we arrived at length
at a class of rocks the deposition of which must be in-
ferred, from the almost entire absence of organic re-
mains, to have followed very soon after the first dawn of
Creation. But the recognition of the footsteps and re-
mains of reptiles in beds of an earlier date than was
before assigned to them tended to corroborate the infer-
ences which had been previously deduced from the dis-
covery, in a few rare instances, in rocks of the secondary
age, of mammalian remains ; and this has induced cer-
tain eminent geologists boldly to dispete whether from
the earliest to the latest period of the earth's history any
gradation of beings can in reality be detected."
After touching lightly on the controversy raised among
geologists on this question, and adverting to the investi-
gations of Boussingault, Deville, and Bunsen, relative to
the gases and other bodies evolved from volcanoes in
their various phases of activity, the president glanced
cursorily at the nearly allied science of geography. The
important undertaking set on foot in connection with
this department of knowledge, and the interesting disco-
veries made in it since the last meeting of the associa-
tion, were thus briefly enumerated :
" 1. Dr. Kane has extended Arctic discovery through
Smith Strait, at the head of Baffin's Bay, to about three
degrees near the Pole. 2. Mr. Kelley has announced the
result of several independent•serveying expeditions des•
patched by him to the Valley of the Atrato, with a view
to the formation of a great navigable channel through
Central America, between the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans. When Humboldt directed attention to this re-
gion 50 years since he had only uncertain reports to
guide his anticipations • and these surveys have been
the first to throw actual light upon this region. 3. An ex-
pedition has been despatched t) North Australia for the
purpose of exploring the interior and tracing the extent
of the northern watershed. Its arrival at the mouth of
the Victoria River has bean announced. 4. It is proposed
by the Geographical Society to despatch an expedition to
Eastern Africa to explore the extent of the inland waters
known to exist there, and if possible to discover the long-
sought sources of the Nile. 5. The explorations in the
Rocky Mountains by several parties in South America,
in the Pacific, and elsewhere, are far too numerous to be
further alluded to."
The president then referred to the change which the sen-
timents of the public have undergcne in relation to the
claims of physical science—a change, he observed, that
afforded equal ground for congratulation with the actual
progress made in those pursuits. It was gratifying to
find that the attention of the Legislature had at length
been seriously called to the consideration of what
measures of a public nature might be adopted for improv-
ing the position of science and its cultivators. The
Royal Society had appointed a body of its members to
receive suggestions:on that subject, and to report upon it,
in order that a matured plan to meet this object might
be presented to Parliament at its next session. He
also cited the School of Mines, the Ipswich Museum, the
Oxford Museum, the growing interest taken in the pro-
ceeding. of that aagoeiatioo, together wilt the increasing
recognition of the importance of science in the educatien
of youth, as gratifying ;signs of advancement, He
I )okecl forward, he said, with confidence to the day when
the requirements at Oxford in the department of physi-
cal science would become so general and so pressing
that no institution which professed to prepare the youth
it instructed for academical competition would venture
to risk its reputation bydec:ining to admit those branches
of study into its educational course. Having eloquently
combatted the prejudice entertained against scientific
studies on the gr mud that they are inimical to revealed
religion, Dr. Daubeny concluded as follows:--
" We are told that in a future and a higher state of
existence the chief occupation of the blessed is that of
praising and worshipping the Almighty. But is not the
contemplation of the works of the Creator, and the study
of the ordinances of the Great Lawgiver of the universe,
in itself an act of praise and adoration ; and, if so, may
not one at least of the sources of happiness which we are
promised in a future state of existence, one of the re-
wards for a single-minded and reverential pursuit after
truth in our present state of trial, consist in a develop-
ment of orr faculties, and in the power of comprehend-
ing those laws and provisions of nature with which our
finite reason does not enable us at present to become
cognisant? Such are a few of the reflections which the
study of physical science, cultivated in a right spirit, na-
turally suggests ; and I ask you whether they are not
more calculated to inspire humility than to induce con-
ceit—to render us more deeply conscious how much of
the vast field of knowledge must ever lie concealed from
our view, how small a portion of the veil of Isis it is
given U 9 to lift up—and therefore to dispose us to ac-
cept, with a more unhesitating faith, the knowledge
vouchsafed from on high on subjects which oar own un-
assisted reason is incapable of fathoming. Let us not
then,' to use the words of a living prelate, think scorn
of the pleasant land. That land is the field of ancient and
modern literature, of philosophy in almost all its branches,
of the arts of reasoning and persuasion. Every part of
it may be cultivated with advantage, as the land of
Canaan when bestowed upon God's peculiar people.
They were not commanded to let it lie waste, as incur-
ably polluted by the abominations of its first inhabi-
tants ; but to cultivate it and dwell in it, living in obe•
dience to the Divine law, and dedicating its choicest
fruits to the Lord, their God.'

At a meeting of the Manchester Town Council held
yesterday it was agreed to repeat the invitation given to
the British Association a few years ago to visit that city.
The intention is to invite the association to hold its
meeting in 1857 at Manchester, and a committee of the
town council was nominated for that purpose. The op-
portunity is understood to be favourable, because it has
transpired that at Dublin the magnificent hall at Trinity
College, where the association were to meet in 1857 if
they accepted the invitation from that city, will not be
completed in time. This being the case, it will pro-
bably bernore convenient to Dublin to postpone its claim,
and as the exhibition of art treasures at Manchester will
then be open, the meeting there would afford the mem-
bers of the British Association a favourable opportunity
of visiting this collection of works of art at the same
time. The literary and other societies of Manchester
will join in the invitation.

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