The Sun.
London, England, 1858-09-24 00:00:00

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PRICE 4D• STAMPED, SD.

They are evidence unmistakeable of -the close
affinity between the aims and tendencies of'
science and those of true State policy. lh
proportion to the activity, productivity, and
prosperity of a community is its power of
responding to the calls of the Finance Minister.
By a far-seeing one the man of science will be re-
garded with a favourable eye, not less for the
unlooked-for streams of wealth that have already
flowed, but for those that may in future arise out
of the applications of the abstract truths to the
discovery of which he devotes himself. (ApplatE;e.)
After pointing out the benefit which had arisen to
the State from the discoveries of Bland., OerstM,
Hunter, Priestley, and Babbage, and the advantages
accruing from the establishment of the British
Observatory at Kew, and the application of pure
mathematics and astronomy to trade and commerce,
in making voyages safer and.speedier, and after
acknowledging the aid which the Government had
aftorded to scientific expeditions recommended by
the association, to the Kew Observatory, and to
other institutions, the learned professor concluded
as follows :—" It 'now only remains for me to
express how deeply-I feel the honour 'conferred on
me by the position in which, through your kind-
ness, I am now placed ; how highly I esteem the
opportunity afforded me of addressing -so distin-
guished and influential an audience in this most
noble hall ; and how sincerely I thank you for the
patience and favour with which you have received
the address." (Loud applause.)
The MAYOR, in proposing a vote of thanks to
Professor Owen, observed that the assembly must
all have derived an immense amount of. information
from the general review which had been given of
the practical sciences of the present day. Without,
however, saying more at that late hour, he could
not refrain, on behalf of the corporation and. the
inhabitants from bidding their chairman a hearty
welcome as the representative of the British Asso-
ciation. He felt proud in having the Association
there on that occasion, and he hoped that the accom-
modation provided, and the cordial reception the
members would receive, would induce the Associa-
tion to visit Leeds again in its regular order.

dered. The practical results of the study of the ani-
mal kingdom in relation to sources of food and
beasts of traction and burden were then referred. to,
and after some remarks on the great importance of
natural museums of natural history, he added—The
most elaborate and beautiful of created things,
those manifesting life, have much to teach—much
that conies home to the business of man, and also
to the highest elements of his moral nat are. The
nation that gather together thousands of corals,
shells, insects, fishes, birds, and beasts, and votes
the requisite funds for preparing, preserving, hous-
ing, and arranging them, derives the smallest pos-
sible return for the outlay by merely gazing and
wondering at the manifold variety and strangeness
of such specimens of natural history. The simplest
coral and the meanest insect may have something
in its history worth knowing, mid in some way
profitable. Every organism is a character in which
Divine wisdom is written, and which ought to be
expounded. (Applause.) Our present system of
opening the book of nature to the masses, as in the
galleries of the British Museum, without any pro-
vision for expounding her language, is akin to that
which keeps the Book of God sealed to the multi-
tude in a dead tongue. (Applause.) The learned
professor next went on to inculcate the importance
of a practical knowledge of sanitary science, and re-
ferred to the ignorance which had for so long pre-
vailed on all questions involved in such science, and
in the painful results of this ignorance, presented
not only in large workshops and densely populated
towns, but in our naval and military arrangements,
as shown during the Crimean campaign, especially-
noticing the awful loss of life in the French army
at Varna and in the Dobrudscha. He referred to the
successful sanitary operations at Croydon and Ely,
and added—Jt, has been shown by the Sanitary
Commissioners as a general result that nearly one-
half the prevalent diseases are due to one or other
form of atmospheric impurity ; impurity from
decomposinc, fecal or animal and vegetable
matter within and without human habitations and
beneath the sites of atmospheric impurity from over
crowding. For the prevention of the diseases aris-
ing from these causes the sanitary physician must
direct his requisitions, not to the apothecary, but to
professors of new arts which are only partially
created—the art of the sanitary architect and the
art of the sanitary. engineer. The latter has already
officially shown how he may collect water from
natural and artificial springs, convey it into houses
unintermittingly fresh and without stagnation, and
by its means remove from houses, through self-
cleansing drains and self-cleansing sewers con-
stantly, and before noxious decompositions can com-
mence, all the fecal and waste animal and vegetable
matter. In our time physicians have ably exerted
themselves in aid of the sanitary engineer and ad-
ministrator, but it is to the landlord—to the repre-
sentative landlords and owners of habitations—in
Parliament to whom exhortations arc now required
to be addressed to raise their minds above " the
sordid considerations" of the expenses of cure, that
is, of the expenses of those sanitary works of com-
bined drainage and water which it is their province
to supply. (Applause.) Agriculture has of late
years made unusual progress in this country, and
much of that'progress is due to the application of
scientific principles ; chiefly of those supplied by
chemistry ; a lesi degree of zoology and physid-
logy. Geology now teaches the precise nature and
relations of soils—a knowledge of great practical
importance in guiding the drainer of land in the
modifications of his general rules of practice. Palm-
ontology has brought to light unexpected sources
of valuable manures, in phosphatic relics of ancient
animal life, accumulated in astounding masses in
certain localities of England, as, for instance, in
the red crag of Suffolk and the green sands of
Cambridge. But quantities of azetic, ammoniacal,
and phosphatic matters are still suffered to run
to waste ; and, as if to bring the wastefulness
more home to the conviction, those products, so
valuable when rightly administered, become a
source of annoyance, unremunerative outlay,
and disease, when, as at present in most towns,
imperfectly, and irrationally disposed of. (Ap-
plause.) For the most part, thought is taken
only how to get rid of these products in the easiest
and quickest way. The metropolitan authorities
have hitherto carried the chain of reasoning no
further. They have turned them into the Thames,
the receptacle nearest at hand; but in so doing
have failed in their prime intention. The metro-
polis is not even rid of its excreta ; but they are
returned upon it and accumulated with increased
noxious and morbific power on the strands of the
valley that bisects it ; appealing, as is notorious,
summer after summer, to the very Legislature
itself, with unintermitting and importunate odours,
compelling the attention of the possessors of land
and houses to this important subject. (Applause.)
and here I would beg leave to remark that in the
operations of nature there is generally a succession
of processes co-ordinated for a given result ; a peach
is not directly developed as such from its elements;
the seed would, a priori, give no idea of the tree,
nor the tree of the flower, nor the fertilized germ
of that flower of the pulpy fruit in which the seed
is buried. It is eminently. characteristic of the
Creative wisdom, this far-seeing and provision of
an ultimate result, through the successive opera-
tions of a co-ordinate series of seemingly very.dif-
ferent conditions. The further man discerns, in a
series of conditions, their co-ordination to produce
a given result the nearer does his wisdom approach
—though the distance be still immeasurable—to the
Divine wisdom. One philanthropist builds a fever-
hospital, another drains a town. One crime-pre-
venter trains the boy, another hangs the man. One
statesman would raise money by augmenting a
duty, or by a direct tax ; and finds the revenue not
increased in the expected ratio. Another dimi-
nishes a tax, or abolishes a duty, and through the
foreseen consequences the revenue is improved. The
latter is the wise statesman. Quarantine exemplifies
only the first step in the progress of thought, bearing
on the prevention of a dreaded distemper. It is a
system which might keep out contraband goods or
uncertified strangers, but it is powerless against the
gaseous factors of plague, cholera, or yellow fever.
No country in Europe has suffered more from such
maladies than Naples or Portugal, where quaran-
tine regulations are most stringent. Science is
deeply concerned in one progressive step—the
uniformity of standard in measure and weight
throughout the civilised world ; in urging oil
which step energetic and unwearied efforts are n6w
being made by a committee of our fellow labourers
of the Royal Society of Arts, among whom the
name of the prime promoter of this and kindred
reforms, Mr. James Yates, deserves special and
honourable mention. Chemistry is more concerned
in the uniform expression of the results of her deli-
cate balances among her cultivators of different
countries ; natural history is no less interested in
the use by all observers of one and the same scale
for measuring, and of one set of terms for expres-
sing the superficial dimensions of her subjects. In
reference to the relations now subsisting between
the State and Science, my first duty is to express
our grateful szase of such measure of aid, co-opera-
tion, and countenance as has been allotted to
scientific bodies, enterprises, and discoveries,—
more especially to acknowledge how highly- we
prize the sentiments of the Sovereign towards our
works and aims, manifested by spontaneous tributes
to successful scientific research, in honourable titles
and Royal gifts, and, above all, in the gracious ex-
pressions accompanying them, with which her
Majesty has been pleased to distinguish some of
our body. Happy are we, under the present
benignant reign, to have in the Royal Consort a
Prince endowed with exemplary virtues, and with
such accomplishments in science and art as have
enabled his Royal Highness effectually, and on
some memorable occasions, in the most important
degree, to promote the best interests of both.
We rejoice, moreover, in the prospect of being
honoured and favoured at a future meeting by the
Presidency of the Prince Consort ; and that ere
long the Association may give the opportunity for
the delivery of another of those " addresses" preg-
nant with deep thought, good sense, and right
feeling, which have placed the name of Prince
Albert high in the esteem of the intellectual
classes, and have engraven it deeply in the hearts
of the humblest of her Majesty's subjects. (Loud
applause.) On the part of the State sums continue
to be voted in aid of the means independently
possessed by the British Museum and the Royal
Society, wherebythe Natural History Collections
in the first are extended and the more direct
scientific aims of the latter institution are advanced.
The Botanical Gardens and Museum at Kew and
the Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn-street
are examples of the national policy in regard to
science of which we can hardly over-estimate the
importance. Most highly and gratefully also do
we appreciate the co-operation of the Board of
Trade with our meteorologists by the recent for.
mation of the department km the collection of
meteorological obsetvations made at sea. But not
by words only would or does science make return
to
.Governments fostering and aiding her endea-
vours for the public weal. Every practical appli-
cation of her discoveries tends to the same end as
that which the enlightened statesman has in view.
(Applause.) The steam-engine, in its manifold

(Hear, hear.)
The Rev. Dr. HooK, the Vicar of Leeds, seconded
the resolution. He could not, he said, restrain
from offering his congratulations to the British
Association on this its fourth visit to its native
county. When a voice from Scotland, evoking
the practical energy of Yorkshire, called into exist-
ence the British Association, the state of science in
England was such as to provoke the remarks of
foreigners, and to excite regret among themselves,
not only of those devoted to scientific pursuits, but
of every one who was anxious for the honour of his
country. Through'tke influence of that association
their country had advanced to its proper, that was
the foremost, place in the field of science—the posi-
tion it occupied in every other department of hamtm
learninm. (Hear, hear.) It would be impertinent
in him to attempt to pass a eulogy ouProfessor Owen,
whose fame was world wide, and it would be equally
presumptuous if he were to make any remarks on
the address in which their president had photo-
graphed the discoveries of science, but he could not
withhold his: thanks for the general tone of that
address. (Applause.) It would confirm the grow-
ing feeling that science, instead of being, as it was
once suppos3d, the opponent, was really the hand-
maid of Christianity. People were beginning to
see that the philosopher might carry out his re-
searches into the secrets of nature fearless of con-
sequences and regardless of results ; and that, at
the same time, the theologian, with equal tenacity
and boldness, could assert the facts of revelation,
since the author of nature and the author of reve-
lation was the same blessed Being. They might
also rest assured that the facts of science were
reconcileable with the facts of Scripture, though in
their ignorance they knew not how to reconcile
them, until the Christian philosopher came among
them, and was able to unite, as Lord Bacon said, a
deep knowledge of the works of God with a know-
ledge of His Word. (Applause.)
The motion was carried with acclamation.
Professor PHILLIPS then stated that tickets had
been taken by 150 old life members, 31 old annual
members, 26 new life members, 62 new annual
members, 519 associates, 415 ladies; and six
foreigners, making a total of 1;259, whose subscrip-
tions amounted to £1,400. (Applause.)

The meetings of the several sections have been
attended to-day, the aggregate number of per-
sons present not bemg far from 1,800 or 2,000.

Aniong the papers put down to be read to-day
were the following :

SECTION A.--MATHEITICAL AND PHYSICAL
SCIENCE.

Rev. Professor Powell—Continuation of Report
on Luminous Meteors for 1857, 1858 ; B. Stewart
—On Radiant Heat; W. S. Ayrton---A communi-
cation on Heat, and the Indestructibility of
,Ele-
mentary Bodies, by Miss Rosina M. Zorulin ; Dr.
P. A. Siljestrom—On the Distribution of Heat in
the Interior of the Earth ; also, on the Constitu-
tion of Comets ; Colonel Sykes—A communication
from Mr. Broun, on the Laws of Magnetic Varia-
tion, Intensity, and Dip observed in India, as com-
pared with those derived from the Makerstoun
Observations.