years ago, knew little of astronomy, chemistry, and physics. Such, however, has been the unfortunate policy of the Church for many centuries. I need not remind you that the great Galileo died a prisoner of the Inquisition, and that Servetus was publicly burnt in Geneva, by the authority of Calvin. The true cause, unquestionably, of the present chasm in thought which divides the literary and religious from scientific men is, that the former have been bred up in ignorance of physiology, that is, of all that relates to their own bodily structure, functions, and requirements. Unfortunately, their education causes in them a want of appreciation and an incapacity of comprehending scientific truths. Clergymen and most religious teachers are totally insensible to the crrors and discrepancies of language they use in the pulpit; so that, when the scientific man takes his place in church, he is surprised at the manifest ignorance of established truths constantly preached to the people." The main object of the lecture was to insist upon the fact that physiology in some form or other should constitute a part of the education of every one. A Committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science strongly recommended it in 1868; and wherever it has been tried it has been attended with marked success, especially in girls' schools, and to illustrate this point Mr. Bennett showed how, adding that "Perhaps women in all classes and degrees of society have more to do with the preservation and duration of human life even than men ; and in all ranks of society should have physiology taught them. It should be an essential subject in their primary, secondary, and higher schools. So strong are my convictions on this subject, that I esteem it a special duty to lecture on physiology to women, and whenever I have done so, have found them most attentive and interested in the subject, possessing indeed a peculiar aptitude for the study, and an instinctive feeling-whether as servants or mistresses, wives or mothers-that that science contains for them, more than any other, the elements of real and useful | knowledge. In advocating the propriety, therefore, of introducing physiology as an essential part of education to all classes of society, I would observe in the last place, that when you enter upon the duties of your profession, you will find too frequently that your best efforts are frustrated by parents, nurses, or attendants on the sick, who, not comprehending, are therefore incapable of carrying out your instructions. I have myself seen, only too frequently, the most melancholy deaths produced in families, and extreme wretchedness occasioned, from carelessness or ignorance of what ought to be donearising entirely from an unacquaintance with the most common rules requisite for the preservation of life." It is a strange rider to this to add, that the University here has just by its vote rendered the higher education of women in these subjects impossible for the present so far as Edinburgh is concerned, though it is fair to remark that the majority was so narrow that it is not too much to hope that ere long this decision, which is eminently to be regretted, will be reversed. At the meeting of the General Committee on Wednesday, the reports of the Council, in which they gave an account of their stewardships for the past year, and the report of the Kew Committee, were read. It is not necessary to give either of these documents in extenso, but the following references to them may be useful. The connection between the Association and Kew Observatory is to cease, and the Government is to be informed of the Association's desire to see its direction and maintenance transferred to the Royal Society, who will administer the means placed at the disposal of science by the munificence of Mr. Gassiot. Dr. Hirst has resigned his office as joint general secretary, and Mr. Douglas Galton, C.B., F.R.S., has been elected to succeed him. Those who know Mr. Galton will heartily congratulate the Association on his willingness to undertake the duty. Prof. Van Beneden, Dr. Crafts, Dr. Anton Dohrn, Governor Gilpin, of Colorado, H.H. the Rajah of Kolapore, M. Plateau, and Prof. Tchebichef have been added to the list of corresponding members. The consideration of some revised regulations drawn up by the Council for regulating the proceedings of the several sections was postponed for a future meeting. An important recommendation has been urged by the committees of the Biological and of the Geological sections, which is likely-if accepted by the Council-to increase much the scientific value and interest of the meetings of the Association. It has been recommended that, in addition to the various rooms provided for the meetings of the sections, sale of tickets, &c., a room be annually provided for the purposes of a temporary museum. It cannot be doubted that such a museum would be a great success. In the meetings of the British Medical Association and the Archæological Association similar museums are very important features of the proceedings. A good-sized room, provided with a number of glass-cases arranged on tables, such as are always to be hired in large towns, would constitute the machinery of the museum. One or two reliable members of the Association would have the management of it, and exclude undesirable or worthless objects, whilst whipping in all of special interest; members would bring new and rare geological specimens, zoological specimens, human crania, flint-weapons, physiological apparatus, chemical apparatus, and microscopes, which would all be arranged judiciously and ticketed. We have no hesitation in saying that such a museum, when once brought into working order, would be the greatest attraction of the meeting. The proposal was originated by Mr. Ray Lankester. Thanks to the exertions of Dr. King, who urged strongly the formation of a separate section for Ethnology, the meeting of the Committee was not altogether dull, and this gentleman, who is a born Irishman, if not an Irishman born, fairly convulsed the Committee by his method of appeal. First he urged that there should be a separate section, because the Queen and Prince Consort "had come in their yacht to visit all the sections" at the Southampton Meeting. Next he complained that at Exeter the ethnologists" were put into a room which would not hold them," but the appeal was unavailing, Prof. Huxley's quietus came in due time, and the matter-and Dr. King-dropped. The definite acknowledgment of Anthropology as a department of the Biological Section of the British Association, has led to the admission of a wide range of subjects in that department. "What is man?" is a question which cannot be answered by comparative anatomy alone. Dr. Tristram proposed in committee that Psychology be recognised as a distinct branch of Anthropology. This proposal was overruled by the declaration of the president, that man as a compound being could not be discussed apart from the psychological aspects of the question. The Anthropological Department has, consequently, been flooded by papers of the most controversial tone on this side of the investigation of humanity. The most pro vocative papers on the subject were those of Mr. Staniland Wake, on Man and the Ape, and of Mr. Kaines, on the Anthropology of Comte. Both these papers are vigorously attacked on the Psychological side; the opponents of Positivism taking their stand on the contemptuous rejection of metaphysics by the writers. But the Positivist papers necessarily invoked the theological element, as they assumed at the outset that the whole metaphysical side of the question must be expunged, as being a question of which physicists were incompetent to judge. This led to as universal an affirmation of the tripartite nature of man, by various speakers, led by Mr. Boyd Dawkins, and the impossibility of admitting the premises of the writers on his origin until the origin of his spirit had been demonstrated to be material. Among the topics of general conversation during the first part of the meeting, have been the proposed dredg-theinterruptions consisting in excursions on the Saturday, ing exploration, which it is understood will be undertaken by which the geological, chemical, and botanical sections by the Government, following the example set by the protested against that rule of the Council which attempts American, Swedish, and other nations, and the proposed to discountenance such blandishments during the Associa Eclipse Expedition to Ceylon next December. The former tion, forgetting, as it seems to us, the extreme value of local announcement has been hailed with the liveliest satisfac- inquiries which it is impossible to carry out otherwise, as tion; and the Government is on all hands congratulated on every moment is so fully occupied. Our notice of the its appreciation of the importance of this work. The feel- sectional work may here be very brief, as we shall give in ing touching the Eclipse Expedition is of an entirely their proper places notices of all papers of importance or opposite character, as it has leaked out that this year, as interest. last, affairs have been delayed and badly managed. After Messrs. Lockyer's and Janssen's papers on Friday, Sir William Thomson said he joined very warmly in what Mr. Lockyer and M. Janssen had urged. M. Janssen had asked that Britain should join France and Germany in this friendly struggle, and it would be a disgrace to England if it did not accept that challenge, and do its very best to beat both France and Germany in the struggle, adding that all the efforts of all the nations would not be too much for the importance of the work. The Scotsman, in a leading article on this subject, after urging an appeal to Government on the part of the British Association, writes as follows :--- "The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in fact, who is de facto the keeper of the nation's purse, is de jure, so far as science is concerned, the keeper of the nation's honour; and may the time be long distant when the honour of England shall be tarnished by her relinquishing those expeditions and scientific explorations to the precursors of which we all look back with so much pride. Surely, from this point of view, it should be a subject of regret to the leaders of science now among us that the progress of the nation's best interests should be liable to be thwarted by the jealousies and self-seeking of individuals, and we are glad to learn that the action of the British Association, which we are informed becomes necessary in consequence of some such cause as this, is likely to be carried forward with such vigour that Her Majesty's Government will willingly yield to the demands of science, while at the same time a salutary lesson will be read to those who attempt to make the progress of science-the national importance of which is thoroughly acknowledged heresubservient to their own selfish interests. We have been the more anxious to make these remarks, because we think the time has arrived when the general interests of science and truth demand that any effort, by whomsoever made, to retard the progress of knowledge, should be publicly met without respect of persons and without hesitation; and we may express a hope that the Parliament of Science, now assembled in this city, will counteract the efforts of an oligarchy in the same bold manner as the Parliament of the nation has recently done." In these remarks we cordially concur. We may dismiss this subject by stating that an application for aid is to be sent off to the Government to-night. The President's address, delivered in the evening in the Music Hall, was received with enthusiasm. The Emperor of Brazil, who seems to have come over to this country to show how easily our own rulers might further the progress of science if they chose, occupied a seat on the platform, which was as crowded by the general committee as the body of the Hall was by the ordinary members. Prof. Huxley, in resigning the presidential chair to Sir William Thomson, reminded his auditors of the achievements of the new president, which in this age of cultivation of science and in the pressing rivalry of able and accomplished men in all directions, entitled him to the appellation of an “intellectual giant,” adding, as the poet says of Lancelot, Gentler knight There never broke a lance. On the morrow the sectional work began in real earnest, and has continued with but sinall interruptions ever since After the reading of the addresses, in Section A Dr. Carpenter made an interesting communication with reference to oceanic currents. Sir W. Thomson and Prot Stokes joining in the discussion, which was followed by a paper by M. Janssen on his balloon experiences. Among the papers submitted to the Chemical Section the most popular was perhaps one relating to the working of hæmatite ore. The Geological Section had some pipers of local interest, as also a report on Scotch earthquakes, Of the zoological papers, a report from the Close-Time Committee, and a piper on the rarer raptorial birds of Scotland, gave rise to a discussion on the extirpation of indigenous animals. This was followed by an important paper on co-operation among natural history societies. The Anthropologists discussed such subjects as longevity, and the degeneration of race in Britain; the Geographers received notes of researches in various parts of the world; and among the subjects taken up in the Economic Science Section was that of the Merchant Company's schools, On Friday the proceedings in Section A were opened by papers by Mr. Lockyer and M. Janssen on the recent and coming eclipses. The Chemical Section had, among other papers, a report on recent progress in chemistry in the United States. The geologists received a report on the exploration of Kent's Cavern, besides papers detailing the results of researches in various departments of the science. The Anthropologists discussed, among other subjects, that of ancient hieroglyphic structures. In the Biological Department, spontaneous generation formed the subject of a small discussion between Dr. Calvert and Dr. Bastian, and an important paper was communi cated by Prof. Thistleton Dyer on mimicry in plants. The geographical programme included papers on the geography of Moab and the famous Moabite stone. In the Economic Section a lively discussion took place on the Merchant Company's Education Scheme, introduced by Mr. Boyd's paper of the preceding day. On Saturday, Monday, and yesterday, the flow of papers still continued, the Anthropological Section soon becoming notorious for actual or probable rows, though nothing very serious took place. The questions of state aid to science, and obstacles to science teaching in schools, were dis cussed yesterday in Section A, and here our notice must stop. To-day we have the final General Meeting, and as many of the recommendations which have been made during the meeting will be discussed there, it will be well to delay our notice of them till next week, merely remarking here that we never knew a larger number of valuable recom mendations made for action or money grants. In the meeting of the General Committee on Monday, Bradford was fixed upon as the next place of meeting after Brighton, with Belfast in reserve for the year after. The appointment of Dr. Carpenter as next president was moved in a highly eulogistic speech by Prof. Huxley; the officers of the Association were re-elected with the exception of Dr. Hirst, who, as before stated, is succeeded by Mr. Douglas Galton; and the following Council was appointed for the ensuing year: Messrs. Bateman, Beddoe, Debus, Fitch, G. C. Foster, M. Foster, F. Galton, Gassiot, R.A.C., Godwin-Austen, Huggins, Gwyn-Jeffreys, Lockyer, Merrifield, Ramsay, Simon, Tyndall, Wallace, Williamson, Sir Stafford Northcote, Sir Charles Wheatstone, Colonel Strange, Colonel Sykes, and General Strachey. I COME from fields of fractured ice, I come from empyrean fires, Where molecules with fierce desires The atoms clash, the spectra flash, And Thallium's living green. This crystal tube the electric ray No dust or cloud appear-but stay: What gleams are these of heavenly blue, I light this sympathetic flame, My slightest wish to answer, I sing, it sweetly sings the same, It dances with the dancer; I whistle, shout, and clap my hands, I hammer on the platform, The flame bows down to my commands In this form and in that form. The child who knows his father Be saved that sweet surprise, We find the trace of the monkey's face In the gaze of the British Ass! SECTION A. THURSDAY, Aug. 3.—Speculations on the Continuity of the Fluid State of Matter, by Prof. James Thomson, of Belfast. The author proceeding from the researches of Dr. Andrews on the Continuity of the Liquid and Gaseous States of Matter, in which it has been discovered that there is gradual transition between the ordinary liquid and the ordinary gaseous states of the same matter by courses passing through temperatures and pressures above those at which boiling can take place, showed that there is probably also a theoretical continuity having a real and trne sig. nificance directly across temperatures and pressures of boiling points. This he showed by supposing there to be conditions | partly stable and practically attainable, and partly unstable, corresponding to curved reflex junctions of the curves shown by Dr. Andrews for the gaseous and liquid states,* where they are interrupted at the boiling breach of continuity. As these new views of Prof. Thomson form the subject of a paper submitted to the Royal Society and intended to appear in an early number of the Proceedings, we hope to give a fuller account of them in a future issue.-Prof. Thomson also drew the attention of the Section to the existence for each of the various substances, (water, or carbonic acid, for instance,) of a remarkable point of pressure and temperature, at which alone the substance can exist in three states, solid, liquid, and gaseous, together in contact with one another. This point of pressure and temperature he designates as the triple point; and he shows how this point belongs to three important curves, as being their intersection. On this subject also we propose soon to give a fuller exposition of Prof. Thomson's views. THE BRITISH ASS (Sung by a Cub at the Red Lions' Feed, Edinburgh, August 7, 1871) Air: "THE BRITISH GRENADIERS" SOME men go in for Science, And some go in for Shams, Some roar like hungry Lions, And others bleat like Lambs; But there's a Beast that at this Feast With a tow, row, row, &c, &c. On England's fragrant clover To Scotland's broomy knowes; The Thistle rude-the sweetest food We've read in ancient story With horned beasts to dwell.! If you would know how it happened so, That a King should feed on grass, In Section D, Department B, He had joined the British Ass! On Grecian senses charming Fell the music of the spheres, But voices more alarming Salute our longer ear A swell profound doth now propound From world to world the seeds were hurled, In our wandering through Creation That bring for propagation Will come some day to sweep away SECTION B. ON Thursday, after the address of the President, Dr. Andrews, which has already appeared in our columns, Mr. Dewar presented his Report on Thermal Equivalents of the Oxides of Chlorine. The results were merely preliminary, and exhibited in a remarkable manner the difficulties attending this class of investigations. Dr. Gladstone followed with a paper, which he had prepared in conjunction with Mr. Alfred Tribe, On Some Experiments on Chemical Dynamics. He commenced by referring to a paper recently communicated to the Royal Society, in which it was shown that in various decompositions of metallic solutions the chemical change, in a given time, is not in proportion to the amount of salt present, but that twice the quantity gives three times the chemical action, and also that while silver is deposited in copper, in the decomposition of nitrate of silver by copper an actual passage of the nitric element towards the copper plate occurs. In the present paper, the authors exhibited this latter phenomenon in a dissected form, with other observations. A copper plate was immersed in copper nitrate, and a silver plate in silver nitrate; while the two metals were connected by a wire, and the liquids by a porous cell. Silver deposited upon the silver plate, and the copper plate dissolved; the sp. gr. of the copper nitrate increased from 1015 to 1047, and only a trace of this salt passed into the cell which originally contained silver nitrate. The passage of SO̟ (SO H2?) was also found to take place by an analogous experiment. Similar experiments were made in which the nitrate of silver was kept constant, but the nitrate of copper was increased in equivalent multiples. It was found that the silver deposited increased with the increase in copper salt, being about double when the copper salt was seven times as strong, and that the effect of successive additions gradually diminished. This is in strict accordance with other experiments showing that when the copper plate is immersed in a mixture of the nitrate of copper and silver, the amount of silver deposited is increased, though in a diminishing ratio, by successive additions of copper salt. this acceleration is not produced by a copper salt only was proved The by repeating the experiments with various other nitrates. tabulated results show that the increased effect does not de That * The reader will find these curves engraved in NATURE for August 4, 1870, p. 279. pend simply upon the nitric element, but likewise on the nature of the salt. In the discussion which followed, some curious facts were elicited with respect to the action of sugar on metallic iron. It is well known that hitherto it has not been possible, on account of this action, to convey sugar in iron ships; but Dr. Calvert stated that he had discovered a very simple method, which entirely prevented the action, and he had no doubt that henceforward sugar would be as safely carried in iron ships as in wooden bottoms. Mr. Thos. Ainsworth then read a paper On Facts Developed by the working of Hæmatite Ores in the Ulverstone and Whitehaven districts from 1844-1871. The communication was exceedingly well illustrated by diagrams and specimens ; but the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Ainsworth were pretty generally combated. It was On Friday the proceedings commenced with a paper by Prof. Wheeler, of Chicago, On the Recent Progress of Chemistry in the United States. Mr. Henry Deacon gave an account of his Chlorine Process as applied to the Manufacture of Bleaching Powder on the larger Scale. A note On Regianic Acid, a product derived from walnuts, was then communicated by Dr. Phipson. followed by a paper by Dr. Calvert On the Estimation of Sulphur in Coal and Coke. The sulphur found in coal or coke often exists in two states, partly as sulphuric acid combined with lime, and partly as sulphur combined with iron; it is only the latter combination which lessens the commercial value of the fuel. By boiling the powdered coal with a solution of carbonate of soda, the lime composed is decomposed, and by washing the sulphuric acid may be removed; in the residue is contained the sulphur, combined with iron, which is estimated by any of the methods familiar to chemists. Mr. E. C. C. Stanford next gave the results of Some Preliminary Experiments on the Retention of Organic Nitrogen by Charcoal; these he intends to prosecute still further, and to communicate his observations to the next meeting at Brighton. Mr. I. Smyth gave an account of Some Improve ments in Chlorimetry. In his opinion the use of the milky solution of bleaching powder as employed in the usual methods of chlorimetry is unsatisfactory, and he accordingly recommends that the chloride of lime be decomposed by a solution of carbonate of soda and filtered from the precipitated carbonate of lime when the amount of available chlorine may be determined in the filtrate by any of the usual methods. Professor Delffs, of Hiedelberg, exhibited some splendid Crystals of Sorbln. This body was discovered nearly twenty years ago by Pelouze, but hitherto nobody has succeeded in preparing it from the source indicated by the distinguished French chemist. Dr. Delffs attributed the want of success to the fact that it was usual to combine the preparation of malic acid with that of sorbin, and he showed that it is only when the production of the former substance is dispensed with that sorbin is obtained. By strictly following the method given by Pelouze, Dr. Delffs obtained a large quantity of fine crystals of Sorbin, but on searching for malic acid in the residue, he found that not a trace was present. He attributes its absence to its combination with the radical of alcohol (the malic acid being contained in the alcoholic extract of the berries of Sorbus Aucuparia, the source of the body), whereby malate of ethyl is formed, while by assimulating two atoms of water is converted into sorbin. It would appear therefore that no sorbin is contained ready formed in the fruit of Sorbus Aucuparia. Dr. Emerson Reynolds gave an account of his experiments On the Action of Aldehyde on Sulpho- and Oxygen Ureas, and exhibited a variety of preparations of these compounds. Mr. W. Chandler Roberts, chemist of the Mint, read a short paper On the Molecular Arrangement of the Alloy employed for the British Silver Coinage. The paper proved that the homogeneous character of the alloy of silver and copper is destroyed by the cooling of the molten mass, the silver being concentrated in the centre. Dr. Moffatt read a paper on Ozonometry, in which he stated that ozone test papers do not become permanently coloured in the neighbourhood of cesspools, and that the brown coloration when found is removed by the products of putrefaction. He also stated that light, the humidity of the atmosphere, and the direction of the wind, influence the colouring of the test paper, moisture with heat accelerating chemical action, while strong wind causes a great quantity of ozone to impinge upon the test paper in a given time. To counteract the effects of these, he recommended the test paper to be kept in a box. He next described a tube ozonometer which he had had in use, and gave results obtained by an aspirator ozonometer, and concluded by stating that the results obtained by the aspirator ozonume♬ were not satisfactory. SECTION C. On the Progress of the Geological Survey in Scotland, by Prof Geikie. When the British Association last met in Scotland, I had the honour of bringing before this Section a report upon the progress of the Geological Survey, from the time of its commencemez. here in 1854 by Professor Ramsay, under the direction of the late Sir Henry De la Beche, up to the year 1867, under the supervision of the present Director, Sir Roderick Murchison During the four years which have since elapsed, considerable advance has been made in the survey of the southern half of Scotland, and I propose now, with the sanction of Sir Roderick, to present to you a brief outline of what has been done, and of the present state of the Survey. At the time of my previous report rather more than 3,000 square miles had been surveyed. Since then we have completed 2,700 square miles additional, making a total area of nediv 6,000 square miles. Of this area 3,175 square miles have been published on the one-inch scale, and three sheets, representing in all 632 square miles, are now in course of being engraved The whole country is surveyed upon the Ordnance Maps on the scale of six inches to a mile, and from these field-maps the work is reduced to the one-inch scale, which is the scale adopted for the general Geological Map of the country. In addition to that general map, however, maps on the larger or six-inch are pub lished of all mineral tracts. In this way five sheets of the six-inch maps have now been published, embracing the whole of the coalfields of Fife, Haddingtonshire, and Edinburghshire, with a large portion of the coal-fields of Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire, Ayrshire, and Dumfriesshire. The area over which the field-work of the Survey has extended lies between the mouths of the Firths of Tay, Forth, Clyde, and Solway, eastwards to the borders of Roxburghshire and the mouth of the Tweed. It includes the counties of Fife, Kinross, the Lothians, Lanark, Renfrew, Peebles, Ayr, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries, and Selkirk, with parts of Stirling, Dumbarton, and Perth. Of the geological formations examined, the Lower Silurian rocks of the southern uplands cover a considerable space upon the published maps. Until three years ago the mapping of these rocks continued to be most unsatisfactory, owing to the want of any continuous recognisable section from which the order of succession among the strata could be ascertained, and to the great scarcity of organic remains. Our more recent work among the Leadhills, however, has at last given us the means of unraveling, as we hope, the physical structure and stratigraphical relations of the uplands of the south of Scotland. The rocks there are capable of division into several well-marked groups of strata, characterised by distinct assemblages of fossils. We have a lower or Llandeilo series with a suite of graptolites, and forming probably an upper part of the Moffat group, and a higher or Caradoc set of beds, with a considerable assemblage of distinctive fossils This higher group we believe to be on the same general horizon as the limestones of Wrae and Kilbucho in Peeblesshire. The Lower Old Red Sandstone has now been mapped com pletely over the whole of its extent between Edinburgh and the south of Ayrshire. Fossils have only been met with at one locality in the latter county, where Cephalaspis occurs. The most characteristic feature of the formation is the enormous development of its interbedded volcanic rocks. Between Edinburgh and Lanarkshire, also, there occurs in this formation a local but violent unconformability, connected probably with some phase of the contemporaneous volcanic activity of the region. Most of the detailed work of the Survey has lain upon Carboniferous rocks. In the lowest formations of this system, known as the Calciferous Sandstones, the Survey has now been able to trace a twofold division completely across the country, from sea to sea, viz. a lower group of red sandstones, and a higher group of white sandstones, green, grey, and dark shales, cement-stones, limestones, and occasional coal-seams. All these strata lie beneath the true Carboniferous Limestone. They are becoming daily more important from their containing in some places highly bituminous shales, from which paraffin oil can be made. The Carboniferous Limestone series, with its valuable coals and ironstones, has been mapped, and in great part published, for the eastern and south-western coal-fields, and this is also the case with the Coal-measures. Much addi tional information has been obtained regarding the development of volcanic action in central Scotland during the Carboniferous period. The Permian basins of Ayrshire and Thornhill have been surveyed and in great part published. Much fresh light has in the course of this Survey been thrown on the interesting Permian volcanoes of the south-west of Scotland. Attention has been continuously given to the superficial accumulations. These are now mapped in as great detail as the rocks underneath, and plans are being prepared with the view to an issue of maps of the surface geology. By a recent order of the Director-General, each one-inch map is now accompanied at the time of its publication, or as soon thereafter as possible, with an explanatory pamphlet, in which the form of the ground, geological formations, fossils, rocks, faults, and economic minerals, are briefly described, and such further information given as seems necessary for the proper elucidation of the map. These pamphlets are sold at an uniform price of 3d. Detailed vertical sections are published for each coal-field. For the construction of these sections, records of boring operations are procured and recorded in the register-books of the Survey. Since 1867 more than 312,200 feet of such borings have in this way been entered in our books. Sheets of horizontal sections on a large scale are likewise issued to form, with the maps and explanations, a compendium of the geological structure of each large district. Another feature of the work of the Survey is the collection of specimens of the rocks and fossils of each tract of country as it is surveyed. Since my previous report to this Section of the British Association, we have collected 1,011 specimens of rocks, and 7,500 fossils. These are named and exhibited, as far as the present accommodation will permit, in the Museum of Science and Art at Edinburgh. The work of the Geological Survey is carried on, as I have said, under the guidance of its Director-General, Sir Roderick Murchison, a name which has long been a household word at the meetings of the British Association, and one to which I am sure you will permit me to make on this occasion more than a passing reference. While the Survey advances, as I have shown, steadily over the face of the country, unravelling piece by piece the complicated details of its geological structure, to Sir Roderick belongs the rare merit of having himself led the way, by sketching for us, boldly and clearly, the relations of the older rocks over more than half of the kingdom. Much must undoubtedly remain for future investigation, but his outline of the grand essential features of Highland geology will ever remain as a monument of his powers of close yet rapid observation and sagacious inference. At one time I had hoped that the Chair of this Section might be filled by him, and that we should be permitted to listen anew to his expositions of the rocks of his native country. There is no one among us who does not regret the absence of the familiar face and voice of the veteran of Siluria. We meet once more on Scottish ground, and for the first time we have not here with us the man who has laid a deeper, broader impress on Scottish geology than any other geologist either of past generations or of this. There is, however, on the present occasion, a special cause for regret. Only within the last few months he founded a Chair of Geology in the University within whose walls we are now assembled the first and only chair of the kind in Scotland. It would have been a fitting and grateful duty on the part of the University to welcome one of its most distinguished benefactors. I am well aware, indeed, that this Section-room is no place for the obtrusion of personal sentiments; yet I would fain be allowed to add in conclusion an expression of my own deep regret at the recent illness and consequent absence of one to whom, over and above the admiration which we all feel for his life-long labours and his personal character, many years of friendly intercourse have bound me by the closest ties of affection. SECTION D. BIOLOGY OPENING ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, PROFESSOR ALLEN THOMSON IN now opening the meetings of the Biological Section, it is my first duty to express my deep sense of the honour which has been conferred on me in appointing me to preside over its deliberations. I trust that my grateful acceptance of the office will not appear to be an assumption on my part of more than a partial connection with the very wide field of science included under the term Biology. I would gladly have embraced the opportunity now afforded me of conforming to a custom which has of late become almost the rule with presidents of sections-viz., that of bringing under your review the more valuable discoveries with which our science has been enriched in recent times, were it not that the subjects which I might have been disposed to select would require an amount of detail in each which would necessarily limit greatly their number, and that any attempt to overtake the whole range of this wide-spread department of science would be equally presumptuous and futile on the part of one whose attention has been restricted mainly to one of its divisions. I am further embarrassed in the choice of topics for general remark by the circumstance that many of those upon which I might have ventured to address you have been most ably treated of by my predecessors, as for example, in the sectional addresses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Sharpey, Mr. Berkeley, Dr. Humphry, and Dr. Rolleston, as well as in the presidential addresses of Dr. Hooker and Prof. Huxley. I must content myself therefore with endeavouring to convey to you some of the ideas which arise in my mind in looking back from the present upon the state of Biological science at the time when, forty years since, the meetings of the British Association com. menced-a period which I am tempted to particularise from its happening to coincide very nearly with that at which I began my career as a public teacher in one of the departments of biology in this city. In the few remarks which I shall make, it will be my object to show the prodigious advance which has taken place, not only in the knowledge of our subject as a whole, but also in the ascertained relation of its parts to each other, and in the place which biological knowledge has gained in the estimation of the educated part of the community, and the consequent increase in the freedom with which the search after truth is now asserted in this as in other departments of science. And first, in connection with the distribution of the various subjects which are included under this section, I may remark that the general title under which the whole Section Ú has met since 1866, viz., Biology, seems to be advantageous both from its convenience, and as tending to promote the great con.. solidation of our science, and a juster appreciation of the relation of its several parts. It may be that, looking merely to the derivation of the term, it is strictly more nearly synonymous with Physiology in the sense in which that word has been for a long time employed, and therefore designating the science of life, rather than the description of the living beings in which it is manifested. But until a better or more comprehensive term be found, we may accept that of Biology under the general definition of "the science of life and of living beings," or as comprehending the history of the whole range of organic nature-vegetable as well as animal. The propriety of the adoption of such a general term is further shown by a glance at the changes which the titles and distribution of the subordinate departments of this section have undergone during the period of the existence of the Association. History of the Section During the first four years of this period the Section met under the combined designation of Zoology and Botany, Physiology and Anatomy-words sufficiently clearly indicating the scope of is subjects of investigation. In the next ten years a connection with Medicine was recognised by the establishment of a sub-section or department of Medical Science, in which, however, scientific anatomy and physiology formed the most prominent topics, though not to the exclusion of more strictly medical and surgical, or professional, subjects. During the next decade, or from the. year 1845 to 1854, we find along with Zoology and Botany a sub-section of Physiology, and in several years of the same time along with the latter a separate department of Ethnology. In the eleven years which extended from 1855 to 1865, the branch of Ethnology was associated with Geography in Section F. More recently, or since the arrangement which was commenced in 1866, the section Biology has included, with some slight variation, the whole of its subjects in three departments. Under one of these are brought all investigations in Anatomy and Physiology of a general kind, thus embracing the whole range of these sciences when without special application. A second of these departments has been occupied with the extensive subjects of Botany and Zoology; while the third has been devoted to the subject of Anthropology, in which all researches having a special reference to the structure and functions or life-history of man have been received and discussed. Such I understand to be the arrangement under which we shall meet on this occasion. At the conclusion of my re |