PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

ROYAL PHYSICAL SOCIETY.

NINETY-FIRST SESSION, 1861-62.

Wednesday, November 27, 1861.—T. STRETHILL WRIGHT, M.D., President, in the Chair.

William Stevenson, Esq., Accountant, Dunse, was balloted for, and elected a non-resident member of the Society.

The following donations to the Library were laid on the table, and thanks awarded to the donors:

1. (1) Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 4to. Vol. xxii. Part 2., 1859-60. (2.) Appendix to the Makerstoun Magnetical and Meteorological Observations. 4to. (3.) Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 8vo. Vol. iv., No. 50.---From the Society. 2. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. xi., Nos. 43-45.From the Society. 3. Observations on Temperature in connection with Vegetation. By J. H. Balfour, A.M., M.D. 8vo. 1861.-From the Author. 4. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 8vo. 1860, Part 3, June to December; and 1861, Part 1, January to March. -From the Society. 5. Canadian Journal, Toronto, No. 32, March; No. 34, July; and No. 35, September 1861.-From the Canadian Institute, Toronto. 6. On Canadian Caverns. By George D. Gibb, M.D. From the Author. 7. The Canadian Naturalist and Geologist, and Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Montreal, Vol. vi., Nos. 1-5.-From the Society.

Dr WRIGHT then delivered the Opening Address :-

GENTLEMEN,—I have now to greet you on the commencement of the ninety-first session of the Royal Physical Society, which opens full of promise. Not only can we look back with satisfaction on the many valuable papers which have of late years been read at this table, and which, treasured up in our published proceedings, and disseminated through

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the scientific societies of this and other countries, are assisting to preserve for Edinburgh that high position which she has attained in science; but the billet of this evening shows that, in the ensuing session, we have much to look forward to, both from our young soldiers, whose spurs are yet a-winning, and from well-tried veterans, whose names for many a year have been "familiar as household words" to the lips and pens of all those whom Natural History has taken for her own. Moreover, a highly respectable balance in the bank, and the continued influx of entrance-fees from new members, render us quite easy as to that commodity without which the highest literary and scientific attainments present but a pitiable appearance-so very easy, that a large number of our members, nearly all of us, have neglected for some years to pay our annual contributions. The Council have, however, considered it unadvisable that the property of the Society should any longer be carried about in the pockets of its members, and have directed that the arrears shall be collected, so that our available funds this year will be considerably increased. Since our last meeting, the Society has been deprived of the services of several useful and valuable members. One of them-Professor Shank More-has been removed by the hand of death. I need not in this place recount the history and attainments of one so well known as Professor More. The increasing infirmities of age had for some time prevented his taking any part in the business of the Society, but he never ceased to show an interest in its welfare. We have suffered a severe loss in the removal from Edinburgh of two of our most skilful workers-Mr Andrew Murray and Dr Cleland. To the love of scientific research, the forcible style, the skilful pencil, and the unceasing activity of Mr Murray, the first volume of our Proceedings owes the chief part of its attractions; while his kindness of heart, and the ready interest he always took in the labours of his brethren, will long be remembered by us with regret. I have no hesitation in stating that the papers which Dr Cleland has communicated to this Society, and elsewhere, have placed him in the highest ranks of science as an accomplished comparative anatomist, and we

must hope that we may still be favoured by his assistance, although he may not often be able to come amongst us. The work of the Society for the last session has been well divided amongst the members. On the Vertebrata the papers consist of those of Dr Cleland on the articular processes of the Atlas and Axis; Dr M'Bain on the anatomical distinctions between the skull of the Manatus senegalensis and a Manatus from the Bay of Honduras; Mr Edwards on inflammation in fishes, in which he has determined that those animals are quite indifferent to the infliction of wounds; Mr Peach, of Wick, on the Argentine, Anchovy, and other fishes, and on the termination of the vertebrate column in the tails of the Salmon tribe; Mr J. M. Mitchell and Mr G. Logan on the natural history and fisheries of the Herring and the Sprat; Mr W. S. Young on the Equorial pipefish and its specific distinctions. In Entomology, Mr R. T. Logan's paper on the occurrence of Vanessa polychlora and Cheimatobia borearea in Edinburghshire. On the Calentrata two notices by Dr Strethill Wright-on reproduction in Chrysaora, and on Atractylis coccinea. On the Protozoa we have Dr M'Bain's notices of sponges from Shetland and elsewhere, together with his very valuable and interesting exposition of Bowerbank's recent discoveries and classification, and Dr Strethill Wright's papers on reproduction in Ophryodendron, on Dendrophrya and Lecythia, and on Rhizopod structure, and his discovery of ova and spermatozoa in that class of animals. In Geology and Mineralogy several very important papers have been read, including Mr R. H. Traquair's on the Trilobites of the Carboniferous Limestones of Fifeshire, accompanied by beautiful delineations of species. Mr Andrew Taylor on the exposure of the Liberton Old Red Sandstone conglomerate bed at Newington; and Mr John S. Livingston on the state of our knowledge respecting metamorphism in the mineral kingdom, in which he has given a most interesting account of the production of minerals by artificial means. To all these gentlemen I beg, in the name of the Society, to give cordial thanks for their assistance in the furtherance of its objects. To Dr J. A. Smith, our Secretary, special thanks must be offered for the constant

supply of objects of interest which he has every evening placed upon our table, and his valuable observations thereon; and to Mr G. Logan, the Convener of the Dredging Committee, for his Report.

Such has been the result of the past session. Good steady work has been done, and patiently recorded. We are men of work, not of talk. We have given forth no voice on the grand hypothetical questions which are now troubling the commonwealth of Natural Science. We have been singularly apathetic as to whether or no the stock of our first parent struggled upwards through innumerable adversities from a monad to a man. I fear, indeed, that we are prejudiced people, and would rather leave the question as we found it settled many a year ago at our mother's side. We have given no opinion as to whether the king of the Gorillas died gloriously advancing on his terror-stricken foe, and beating a far-resounding tattoo on his tympanic chest, or whether he was brought to the ground by a rifle-shot in his cerebellum while ignominiously bolting up a tree. But we have been jotting down hard little facts,-rough diamonds, which by-and-bye we may see taken up and ground, and polished, and set by other hands,—central points of crystallization, which we may find dotting the pages of great standard volumes, and glimmering from amid the small type of their foot-notes and indices. Sic itur ad astra. These small facts are the foundations of adamant on which the vast inverted pyramids of science are balanced. In their discovery they are providential revelations, which, though neglected for ages, may in a moment endow mankind with unhoped for welfare and prosperity. How often have men, dreaming of the transmutation of all metals into gold which would be useless-of the attainment of the Elixir which would confer a dreadful immortality,—cast aside the talent placed within their hands, and all that would have made the life ordained for them useful and happy! How often, while invoking all nature to furnish us with the impossible Roc's egg, have we pushed aside the little dusty copper lamp, which, in return for diligent rubbing, would have invested us with the powers of the genius of

Arabian fable! How little did he, who first noticed the attractive property of the loadstone, imagine that to him was revealed a power which would one day guide the commerce and navies of the world over the pathless seas,-which would veer off the floating city, laden with the hopes of a thousand human hearts, and careering over the dark waves with the speed of the wind, from the treacherous iceberg and the crashing floe,*-which would link together in the closest bonds all the kingdoms of the earth,-which could correlatively transmute all the forces of nature—and which may one day render the great sea itself one mighty storehouse of fuel and power for the benefit of mankind!† How little did he, who first linked together an atom of hydrogen. with two of carbon and three of chlorine, dream that then was revealed to mankind the beneficent Elixir which would cause that dread and ancient travail of the woman to cease, -which would change the despairing moan and the agonising terror of the operating table for a calm and dreamless slumber-and which shall render the fame of Dumas and Simpson undying, until the stream of time shall flow for suffering humanity no more!

So it may happen that some unambitious observation made here may throw unexpected light on the Geology of our country, may endow vast districts with mineral wealth undreamt of,-may modify all our received views of cell-life -and may put down a hard little point, on which may arise the Physiology and Pathology of the future. Let us therefore go on as we have done, not urged by the desire of fame or notoriety, but constrained by the love of knowledge and truth.

* Mr Alexander Bryson has lately made a beautiful application of Melloni's pile to the detection of the position of icebergs at sea-the needle of the instrument directing the steersman to avoid them.

†The application of the magneto-electric machine to the conversion of mechanical power into electricity, chemical action, &c., is at present but in its infancy. Magneto-electricity has, it is true, been largely rendered available in electro-metallurgy, in telegraphy, and for obtaining lighthouse illumination. But the day will surely come when the vast water-power of the world will be employed, through the intervention of the magnet, in effecting enormous chemical operations; amongst which will be the resolution of water into its elements, and their application to those purposes for which coal is now employed.