such portions of the former ocean-bed as were covered with vegetation sufficient for their support; and as these animals died, their bones became enveloped in the accumulations of mud and gravel, which were forming in the bays and estuaries.

This era also passed away-the elevatory movements continued-other masses of the bed of the chalk ocean, and of the Wealden strata beneath, became dry land-and at length those more recent deposits containing the remains of the herbivorous mammalia which were the last tenants of the country. The oak, elm, ash, and other trees of modern Europe, now sprang up where the groves of palms and tree-ferns once flourished-the stag, boar, and horse, ranged over the plains in which were entombed the bones of the colossal reptiles-and finally, Man appeared, and took possession of the soil.

"At the present time, the deposits containing the remains of the mammoth and other extinct mammalia, are the sites of towns and villages, and support busy communities of the human race; the huntsman courses, and the shepherd tends his flocks on the elevated masses of the bottom of the ancient chalk ocean-the farmer reaps his harvests upon the cultivated soil of the delta of the country of the Iguanodon-and the architect obtains from beneath the petrified forest, the materials with which to construct his temples and his palaces: while from these various strata, the geologist gathers together the relics of the beings that lived and died in periods of unfathomable antiquity, and of which the very types have long since been obliterated from the face of the earth, and by these natural memorials is enabled to determine the nature and succession of those physical revolutions, which preceded all history and tradition."

ART. XX.-Seventeenth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.*

"THE order of Proceedings at this Seventeenth Meeting of the British Association," (held at Oxford on Wednesday, the 23d of June, and the week thereafter,) "was much the same as on former occasions, with such varieties only as the locality induced. We give our usual summary. On Wednesday, the General Committee assembled. On Thursday, the work of the Sections began; and Prof. Powell lectured in the Radcliffe Library, on Shooting Stars. On Friday evening, Prof. Faraday delivered, at

From the London Athenæum, Nos. 1026 and 1027, June 26, and July 3, 1847. The superior interest of the Address of the President of the British Association, at its late meeting, requires the omission of some other matter, which will be inserted in a future number.

the same place, a lecture on the subject of new discoveries in Electricity and Magnetism. Saturday morning was occupied in excursions to Swindon, Shotover Hill, and Blenheim-and boat excursions on the Isis to Moreham, where the Archbishop of York had thrown open his grounds to the Association. For those who preferred business, there was a meeting of the General Committee in the morning, at nine; and meetings afterward in the mathematical and chemical Sections. In the evening there was a conversational soirée at the Taylor buildings. On Sunday, the Bishop of Oxford preached a Sermon at St. Mary's, which we understand will shortly be printed, at the request of some leading members of the Association; and in the evening, Prof. Powell held a soirée at his house. On Monday, the proceedings in some of the Sections were enlivened by the presence of Prince Albert, who arrived in the morning, accompanied by the Duke Saxe Weimar; and in the evening, Mr. Strickland delivered at the Radcliffe Library, a conversational lecture on the Dodo, and the Dean of Westminster some Geological Remarks. On Tuesday, after the sectional meetings, there was an evening exhibition of Microscopes at the Radcliffe Library. On Wednesday morning, the members of the General Committee gave a breakfast in the hall of Christ Church to the foreign visitors of the Association-and several of the Sections met for business. At one o'clock the concluding meetings of the General Committee were held for the purpose of sanctioning the grants which had passed the Committee of Recommendations; and at three, the concluding general meeting of the Association assembled to pass the customary votes of thanks."

On Wednesday afternoon, at three o'clock, the general meeting convened to hear the speech of Sir Roderick Impy Murchison, on retiring from the chair. "Sir R. H. Inglis then took the chair, and after a brief pause delivered the following address :

THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

:

"May it please you, Mr. Vice Chancellor, Sir Roderick Murchison, Gentlemen of the British Association :-When I consider the attainments of the distinguished person whom I succeed in this chair, I might well shrink from a position which places me in any degree in comparison with him: and when I look back on the array of the most illustrious names in science of this age and nation, some of whom add civil and social rank to the eminence which they have acquired by their personal labors, and who have in succession been your presidents, I feel far more strongly than I can express, the undeserved honor which was most unexpectedly conferred upon me when the Council desired to nominate me to my present position. Though in early years, when I enjoyed more leisure, I took such interest as I could in some branches of natural philosophy and in chemistry, and though I look back to those opportunities with the most grateful recollection of their value

and of the pleasure which I derived from them,-(it is my own fault if I did not derive profit, also, from Kidd in this place, and from Playfair and from Hope in Edinburgh,)-my occupations have, for the larger portions of my life, been such as to prevent my persevering in the pursuits which most of those before me have continued to follow, to their own honor among their fellow men and to the benefit of our common country.

"It has been the practice of former presidents to address the first general meeting of the Association on the progress of science during the preceding year, and on its state and prospects in the present. Sir Roderick Murchison, my eminent friend, who did honor to this chair, took a comprehensive grasp of all the objects which this duty placed within his reach. When I read his Address, I felt, even more than before, my unfitness to follow him; but such as I am, you have selected me to succeed to his position and his duties; and I shall endeavor to discharge my functions with as little discredit to your choice as may be in my power. Whatever may be good in the observations which follow this exordium, will be owing to my friends, the Rev. Dr. Robinson, Prof. Owen, Mr. Robert Brown, and Colonel Sabine. Anxious as I am not to disgrace your judgment in placing me where I am, I am still more anxious not to assume a merit which does not belong to me; and, therefore, unfeignedly begging you to attribute to the sources which I have pointed out, whatever may in detail interest you in the continuation of my Address, I am content with the distinction of calling such men my personal friends.

"I begin with ASTRONOMY.-The progress of astronomy during the past year has been distinguished by a discovery the most remarkable, perhaps, ever made as the result of pure intellect exercised before observation, and determining without observation the existence and force of a planet; which existence and which force were subsequently verified by observation. It had previously been considered as the great trial and triumph of dynamical science, to determine the disturbances caused by the mutual action of the stars in their courses,' even when their position and their orbits were fully known; but it has been reserved for these days to reverse the process, and to investigate from the discordance actually observed, the existence and the place of the wondrous stranger which had been silently, since its creation, exerting this mysterious power. It was reserved for these days to track the path and to measure the force which the great Creator had given to this hitherto unknown orb among the myriads of the air.

"I am aware that Lalande, more than fifty years ago, on two nights -which, if he had pursued the object then first discovered, would have been well distinguished from the rest of the year, and would have added new glory to his own name-did observe what is now fully ascertained to have been the planet Neptune; but though Uranus had just been added to those bright orbs which to mortal eyes for more than two thousand years have been known to circle our sun, Lalande was observing before Piazzi, Olbers, and Harding had added Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta to that number, and before by those discoveries it was proved, not only that the planets round the sun had passed the mystic number of seven-since Herschel had confuted that ancient belief

but that others might also remain to reward the patient labors of other observers. He therefore distrusted his own eyes; and preferred to believe that he had been mistaken, rather than that the existence and force of a new planet had been reserved for the discovery of this latter age. What his eyes saw, but what his judgment failed to discriminate and apply, has since become a recognized fact in science.

"I will not presume to measure the claims of the two illustrious names of Leverrier and Adams; of him, who, in midnight workings and watchings, discovered the truth in our own country, and of the hardly happier philosopher who was permitted and enabled to be the first, after equal workings and watchings, to proclaim the great reality which his science had prepared, and assured him to expect. I will trust myself with only two observations: the one, my earnest hope that the rivalry not merely of the illustrious Leverrier and of my illustrious countryman, Adams, but of the two great nations which they represent, France and England, respectively, may always be confined to pursuits in which victory is without woe, and to studies which enlarge and elevate the mind, and which, if rightly directed, may produce alike glory to God and good to mankind: and the other, my equal hope, that for those (some of whom I trust may now hear me) who employ the same scientific training and the same laborious industry which have marked the researches of Leverrier and Adams, there may still remain similar triumphs in the yet unpenetrated regions of space; and that-unlike the greater son of a great father-they may not have to mourn that there are no more worlds to be conquered.

"It is a remarkable fact, that the seeing of the planet Neptune was effected as suddenly at Berlin by means of one of the star-maps which has proceeded from an association of astronomers chiefly Germans; such maps forming in themselves a sufficient illustration of the value of such Associations as our own, by which the labor and the expensetoo great, perhaps, for any one individual-are supplied by the combined exertions of many kindred followers of science.

"It is another result of the circulation of these star-maps, that a new visitor, a comet, can hardly be within the range of a telescope for a few hours, without his presence being discovered and announced through Europe. Those comets which have been of larger apparent dimensions, or which have continued longer within view, have, in consequence, for more than two thousand years been observed with more or less accuracy; their orbits have been calculated; and the return of some has been determined with a precision which in past ages exercised the wonder of nations ;-but now, improved maps of the heavens, and improved instruments, by which the strangers who pass along those heavens are observed, carry knowledge where conjecture lately dared not to penetrate. It is not that more comets exist, as has sometimes been said, but more are observed.

"An Englishman-a subject of this United Kingdom-cannot refer to the enlarged means of astronomical observation enjoyed by the present age, without some allusion to the noble Earl, Lord Rosse, one of the Vice Presidents of this day, who, himself educated amongst us here in Oxford, has devoted large means and untiring labor. to the completion of the most wonderful telescope which science, art, and wealth SECOND SERIES, Vol. IV, No. 11.—Sept., 1847.

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have ever yet combined to perfect; and which the Dean of Ely-a man worthy to praise the work-pronounced to be a rare combination of mechanical, chemical, and mathematical skill and knowledge. Its actual operations have been suspended by a cause not less honorable to Lord Rosse in another character, than the conception and early progress of his great instrument were to him as a man of science. They have been retarded, so far as he himself is concerned, by the more immediate and, I will say, higher duties which, as a magistrate, as a landowner, and as a Christian gentleman, he owed, and has been paying to his neighbors, his tenantry, and his country, during the late awful visitation which has afflicted Ireland. Yet perhaps my noble friend will permit me to say, that while we not only do not blame him—we even praise him cordially for having devoted his time, his mind, and his wealth to those claims which could not be postponed, since they affected the lives of those who in God's providence surrounded him— there were, and there are others, two at least in his own country, and one his most illustrious friend, Dr. Robinson, (but I speak without any communication on the subject from that great observer and greater philosopher,) who might have carried on the series of observations which this wonderful telescope alone can effect, and might thus have secured for his own division of the empire, the discovery of the planet Neptune.

"The Catalogues of Lacaille and the Histoire Céleste are now before the world; and with the Catalogue of our Association, constitute a series of most important gifts conferred on astronomy. I have already said that I will not presume to measure the relative merits of two eminent individuals;-it is as little within my power to measure the value of such gifts to science. That value can be duly appreciated by none but the great masters of this, the greatest of the sciences: but I may be permitted to add, that here, also, come into beneficial action the powers and the uses of such an association, which, rising above the mere calculations of pecuniary profit, provides for the few who only are capable of extracting the just benefit from such works, those materials of advancing knowledge which are beyond the reach of individuals.

"The Astronomer Royal has done me the honor and the kindness, by a paper which I have just received from him, to make me the vehicle of communicating his wisdom to you on a most important and interesting discovery of the past year.

"In the lunar theory a very important step has been made in the course of the past year. When near the beginning of the present century, a considerable number of the Greenwich lunar observations were reduced by Bürg for the purpose of obtaining elements for the construction of his Lunar Tables, and generally for the comparison of the moon's observed place with Laplace's theory, it was found impossible to reconcile the theoretical with the observed places except by the assumption that some slowly varying error affected the epoch of the moon's mean longitude. From the nature of the process by which the errors of the elements are found, the conclusion upon the existence of this peculiar error is less subject to doubt than that upon any other error. So certain did it appear, that Laplace devoted to it one entire chapter in the Mécanique Céleste, with the title 'On an inequality of