of tigers, elephants, and other animals found in this country, in Siberia and other parts of the world where the climate was much colder than was supposed to be compatible with their existence. That there was undoubted evidence that these animals could adapt themselves to cold and temperate climates as well as to toriid ones, and remarked that the conditions of animal life were not tho-e of climate, but of food and geniet, wherever there was the. prey undisturbed by man, there also would be the destroyer. They had evidence from the writings of Julius Cæsar, of the existence of England, 2000 years ago, of three distinct species of animals, including two gigantic species of ox, and one of the reindeer, and he was himself satisfied that they had once a native British lion, all of which however, were now extinct in this country, and he saw nothing in the remains which had been discovered at Brixham to lead him to suppose that the animals lived before the historic period, or which was inconsistent with the concurrent existence of a rude race of barbarians. At the same time he was open to conviction, and would be very glad to see a good fossil human being, which should prove that man had been much longer upon the earth than historical evidence led them to suppose. President-W. HOPKINS, ESQ. The President said the existence of mammalian life in its earlier stages on the surface of our planet, the condition of its existence, and the period of its introduction, have always furnished ques tions of the highest philosophical as well as paleontological interest. You will be aware that some geologists regard each new discovery of mammalian remains, in formations preceding the older tertiaries, as a fresh indication of the probable existence of mammalia in those earlier periods in which no positive proof of their existence has yet been obtained; while others regard such discoveries only as leading us to an ultimate limit, which will hereafter define a period of the introduction of mammalia on the surface of the earth, long posterior to that of the first introduction of animal life. Be this as it may, every new discovery of the former existence of this highest class of animals must be a matter of great geological interest. An important discovery of this kind has recently been made, principally by the persevering exertions of Mr. Beckles, who has detected in the Purbeck beds a considerable number of the remains of small mammals. The whole of them are, I believe, in the hands of our President, Prof. Owen, for the determination of their generic and specific characters; but Dr. Falconer seems already to have recognized among them seven or eight distinct gencra, some of them marsupial, and others probably placental, of the insectivorous order. I may also notice, as a matter of great palæontological interest, the recent discovery of a new Ossiferous Cave, near Brixham, in Devonshire, of which some account is to be brought before us during this meeting. The past year has been fruitful in paleontological researches. The subject of the motion of glaciers is one of interest to geologists, for unless we understand the causes of such motion, it will be impossible for us to assign to former glaciers their proper degree of efficiency in the transport of erratic blocks, and to distinguish between the effects of glacial and of floating ice, and those of powerful currents. An important step has recently been made in this subject by the application of a discovery made by Faraday, a few years ago, that if one lump of ice be laid upon another, the contiguous surfaces being sufficiently smooth to insure perfect contact, the two pieces in a short time will become firmly the temperature of the atmosphere in which they are placed be many degrees above the freezing temperature. Dr. Tyndall has the merit of applying this fact to the explanation of certain glacial phenomena. There are two recognized ways in which the motion of a glacier takes place: one by the sliding of the whole glacial mass over the bed of the valley in which it exists; and the other by the whole mass changing its form in consequence of the pres sure and tension to which it is subjected. The former mode of progression is that recognized by the sliding theory; the second is that recognized by what has been termed the viscous theory of Prof. Forbes. The viscous theory appeared to be generally recognized. Still, to many persons it seemed difficult to reconcile the property of viscosity with the fragility and apparent inflexibility and inextensibility of ice itself. On the other hand, if this property of viscosity, or something of the kind, were denied, how could we account for the fact of the different fragments, into which a glacier is frequently broken, becoming again united into one continuous mass? Dr. Tyndall has, I conceive, solved the difficulty. Glacial ice, unlike a viscous mass, will bear very little extension. It breaks and cracks suddenly; but the separate pieces when subsequently squeezed together again become by regelation (as it is termed) one continuous mass. After some general re marks on the cause of the laminous structure of glaciers, during which he remarked that there was no doubt Dr. Tyndall was right in supposing the laminae of blue and white ice to be perpendicular to the directions of maximum pressure, he said that it remained to be decided whether the explanations which had been offered were correct; but the actual perpendicularity of the lamina of ice to the directions of maximum pressure within a glacier, and the probable perpendicularity to those directions of the laminæ in rock masses of laminated structure, would seem to establish some relation between these structures in rocks and glacial ice, giving an interest to this peculiar structure in the latter case, which it might not otherwise appear to possess for one who should regard it merely as a geologist. SECTION OF ECONOMIC SCIENCE AND STATISTICS. President-E. BAINES, ESQ. The President said-If the British AsIociation were a theatre for intellectual display, I should shrink from occupying a chair in which I have had such distinguished predecessors. But if I understand the spirit of this Association, it is the simple, honest, earnest pursuit of truth-first, of truth in facts, and secondly, of truth in principles;, and it would be quite foreign to that spirit either to attempt anything of display or to apologize for its absence. I shall be permitted, however, to welcome the disciples of economical and statistical science on their visit to this important centre of industry where practical illustrations may be found of many branches of their subject, and where, I hope, there are many who can value their inquiries. After the remarks made last night by the President of he Association, it may seem superfluous to say anything further on the claims of that science which he pronounced to "bear more immediately than any others on the prosperity of nations and the well-being of mankind." We must all have felt how unanswerably the President proved the value of economical and statistical science, when he referred to the department of vital statistics, and showed what terrific losses had been sustained by our army and navy and the army of France from the neglect of sanitary rules. But I may just remark that what gave to the recent report of Mr. Sidney Herbert's Commission on the health of our troops in barracks its resistless force was, the certainty and precision with which statistical researches enabled it to measure the amount of loss sustained, by comparison with the mortality in other classes of the population at the same ages. The report might have dwelt on sickness, on injudicious diet, on defective ventilation, on want of drainage, and so forth, and all such statements would have been pronounced to be exaggerations or errors: but when it applied the ascertained scale of mortality, so as to prove that there were so many deaths in the thousand when there ought only to have been half that number, the definiteness of the figures and facts defied evasion, fastened on the public mind and conscience, and compelled immediate measures of reform. Those persons who have ignorantly charged upon political economy and statistics a disregard of moral considerations and of humanity may now see how egregiously they were mistaken, and how the arithmetic which they thought so heartless is rising up as the most powerful advocate of the value of human life, of health, of domestic comfort, of temperance, of virtue, of proper leisure, of education, and of all that can purify and elevate society. I am glad to know that we shall have one or more papers on important points of vital statistics laid before this Meeting. May I for a moment refer to another reproach thrown upon statistics, namely, that they may be so used as to prove anything? I hardly need say that it is unfair to argue from the abuse of a thing against its proper use. But it may be admit ted, that there is sufficient grouud for this reproach, in the negligent or dishonest use sometimes made of statistics, to call upon us for the exercise of great caution, so that in the first place we may be sure we have got all the facts that are essential, and in the next place that we draw from them sound and accurate conclusions. I cannot refrain from expressing my conviction that as the science we cultivate has been shown to be favourable to humanity, so it is no less favourable to freedom. Within the last quarter of a century how busy has it been in knocking off all sorts of fetters from human energies! The note on the cover of the December number of the Naturalist, in reference to Art. XXX. of our last volume, has, we find, been misunderstood. It was intended merely to remedy an omission of our own. In copying the article in question from the Canadian Journal, we omitted to copy with it the acknowledgment to the Smithsonian Institution for the use of the wood-cuts, which were originally prepared for that institution; and also to state that the article was based on that in the report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1856, but brought up to 1858 for the Canadian Journal. We regard this more full statement as due to both the bodies to which we have been indebted in this matter. |