The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-17 00:00:00

THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT

ABERDEEN.

ABERDEEN, THURSDAY.
The various sectional meetings of the Association
commenced to-day at 11 o'clock, in the rooms ap-
pointed for them in the Marischal College. We
append a notice of the proceedings in each section.
SECTION A.—Mathematical and Physical Science.
President—Earl Rosse, F.R.S.
This Section met in one of the mathematical class-
rooms of Marischal College—the other sections
occupying various other rooms. The room was quite
crowded, and many were unable to obtain admis-
sion, it being known that H.R.H. the Prince-Con-
sort would visit it at the opening. On the Prince
entering, he was loudly cheered by the audience,
who rose to their feet.
The PRESIDENT, in his opening remarks, said it
had been usual to give an outline of the business
coming before the sections at the first meeting, to
indicate the order of proceedings, and enable new
members to judge of the comparative interest of the
business in the sections. He had just looked over
the papers sent in, and found papers on pure ma-
thematics, applied mathematics ; papers more espe-
cially on light, electricity and magnetism, and on
astronomy ; the processes of mathematical instru-
ments ; also in minor departments of physics ; but
up to the present time the papers on some branches
were not fully come in. With respect to mathe-
matics, a subject so abstruse could scarcely be ex-
pected to be interesting, except to mathematicians ;
and so extensive is the subject that even they
might sometimes be unable to follow more than the
principle and general scope. However any well-
informed man might, from the results obtained,
gain interesting glimpses of mathematical pro-
cesses, and some general idea of the progress mak-
ing in that direction. In applied mathematics
there is more of general interest, and the results are
perfectly intelligible without any special educa-
tion ; and he recollected at the Oxford meeting an
investigation into the identification of a comet was
made interesting to ladies even. Discoveries in
electricity, light, and heat cannot fail to be inte-
resting and valuable. The interest of discovery,
however, is not permanent. For a time dazzled by
the brilliancy of discovery, that brilliancy is lost in
the splendour of some fresh discovery. Man at first
was not put in possession of all the knowledge we
now possess—those things we know were hidden—
veiled—to be brought to light by the vigorous use
of our intellect. And how wonderful has been the
progress of mathematical science since 3,000 years
ago—one simple relation of magnitude suggesting
another, and those relations becoming gradually
more complicated, more interesting, and more im-
portant, till now we are able to weigh the planets,
and, more wonderful still, calculate the course they
will take when acted continually upon by ever-
varying forces. Lord Rosse went on to potice the
moral benefit the influence of these discoveries must
exert on the thoughtful mind, touching on discove-
ries in electricity, which enables us now to commu-
nicate, not slowly by letter, not for short distances
by sound, but to immense distances, and instanta-
neously, by this subtle fluid; and after some general
observations, concluded by taking the chair amid
applause.
Professor W. TllomsoN then proceeded to read a
paper on the necessity for incessant recording and
for simultaneous observations in different localities
to investigate atmospheric electricity. The lecture
was illustrated by means of apparatus. During
the greater portion of it the Prince Consort was
present, listening with evident interest, and put
several questions to the learned speaker.
SECTION B.—Chemical Science.
President—Dr. Lyon Playfair, C. 8., F.R.S.
The proceedings in the section of chemical science
commenced by the president, Professor Lyon Play-
fair, delivering an opening address. The class-
room was quite filled, and among the audience who
passed in and out at occasional intervals were
several distinguished savans. His Royal Highness
the Prince Consort was also present, and appeared
to take great interest in the discussion.
Professor LYON PI.AYFAIR began by stating that
Sir John Herschel, his predecessor in the chair,
drew their attention to the great importance of
studying the combining proportions of bodies, in
the hope of determining the exact numerical rela-
tion which prevails between the elements. He con-
ratulaied the Section on the publication of the
laborious investigation of Dumas on this important
inquiry. It required a chemist of great manipula-
tive skill to obtain combining numbers for the ele-
ments upon which reliance could be placed.
In the recent memoir of Dumas we had the
result, although not the details, of a large
series of the experiments on many of the elements.
After describing shortly the nature of these experi-
ments, he went on to say that at a meeting of the
British Association in 1851, they had the pleasure
of hearing an exposition of his researches delivered
by M. Dumas himself. In this country they were
familiar with many ingenious discussions on the
numerical relations of the elements, and several
interesting analogies had been arrived at, which
had not yet, however, been sufficienty confirmed to
be ranked in their scientific systems. There was
no common ground upon which the theory of
equivalents could be at present established—the
researches of Brodie, for example, pointing to dif-
ferent results than those of Dumas. The subject
was one of interest, and would be on more than one
occasion brought under discussion in some of the
papers to be read in the Section. He congratulated
the meeting on the number of distinguished Eng-
lish chemists who were present, and concluded by
expressing his regret that, owing to their cold
northern position, they could not have the pleasure
of some of their distinguished foreign colleagues.
Prince Albert then withdrew, and was loudly
cheered as he passed out of the class-room.
SECTION C.—Geology.
President—Sir C. Lyell, LL.D., D.C.L., F,R.S.
;In this section, which met in the principal hall
of the college, there was a numerous attendance.
His Royal Highness the Prince Consort entered
the Hall with Mr. Thomson of Banchory, and took
his place on the platform, on the right hand of the
chairman, amidst loud cheering, the whole com-
pany standing.
Sir CHARLES LYELL read a very interesting
paper, which he had prepared as an opening ad.
dress on " Proofs of the antiquity of the Human
Race." After alluding to the interest attaching to
the subject, he said that for the last quarter of a
century the occasional occurrence in various parts
of Europe of the bones of man or the works of his
hands, in caves, or breceias and stalactites, associated
with the remains of the extinct hyena, bear, ele-
phant or rhinccerop, had given rise to a suspichn
that the date of man must be carried further back
than we had before imagined. On the other
hand, extreme reluctance was naturally felt
on the part of scientific reasoners to admit the
validity of such evidence, seeing that so many caves
had been inhabited by a succession of tenants,
and had been selected by man as a place not only
of domicile but of sepulture, while they had also
served not unfrequently as the channels through
which the waters of flooded rivers had flowed, so
that the remains of living beings which had peo-
pled the district at more than one era may have
subsequently been mingled in such caverns, and
confounded together in one and the same deposit.
The facts, however, recently brought to light dur-
ing the systematic investigation, as reported on by
Falcon.-r, of the Brisham Cave, must have prepared
them to admit that scepticism in regard to the cave
evidence in favour of the antiquity of man had been
pushed to an extreme. In the course of the last 15
years another class of proofs had been advanced in
France in confirmation of man's antiquity, into two
of which he had personally examined in the course
of the present summer. After alluding to the dis-
coveries of M. Ayward in 1844, in the volcanic dis-
trict of central France, of portions of two human
skeletons,
visit
Sir
he
gave the following as the re-
smulrt. of aope;t had made to Le Puy this year with
e was inclined to believe that the
human fc iils were really imbedded by natural
causes in their present matrix ' • but in his opinion
they afforded no demonstration of man having wit-
nessed the last volcanic eruptions of central France.
mto
The skulls do not depart from the modern
Ylle, and the human bones
Europian or Caucasian t
were in a fresher state than those of the quadrupeds
found in any breccia of Denise which can be referred
to the period even of the latest volcanic eruptions.
Sir Charles then gave an interesting
description of
the flint implements associated in undisturbed gravel
in the north of France with the bones of elephants
at Abbeville and Amiens. He displayed
some of
these implements which he had obtained on his re-
cent visit. They were likened to hatchets, spear-
heads, and wedges, and their great number was
truly wonderful, more than a thousand of them
having already been met with in the last ten
years in the valley of the Somme, in an area fif-
teen miles in length. He inferred that a tribe of
savages, to whom the use of iron was unknown,
made a long sojourn in that region, and he
was reminded of a large Indian mound which
he saw in St. Simon's Island, in Georgia, ten acres
in area, and having an average height of five feet,
chiefly composed of cast-away oyster shells, through-
out which arrow-heads, stone axes, and Indian
pottery were dispersed. He believed the antiquity
of the Abbeville and Amiens flint instruments to be
great inEfeedif compared with the times of history or
tradition. It-must have required a long period for
the wearing down of the chalk which supplied the
broken flints, for the formation of gravel at various
heights, sometimes 100 feet above the present level
of the Somme, and for the deposition of sediment,
including entire shells, both terrestrial and aquatic.