[Illustration: THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT MANCHESTER PORTRAITS OF THE
PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTS OF SECTIONS ]
The fifty-seventh annual meeting of the British Association was opened
on Wednesday evening, Aug. 31, 1887, at Manchester, by an address from
the president, Sir H.E. Roscoe, M.P. This was delivered in the Free
Trade Hall. The chair was occupied by Professor Williamson, who was
supported by the Bishop of Manchester, Sir F. Bramwell, Professor
Gamgee, Professor Milnes Marshall, Professor Wilkins, Professor Boyd
Dawkins, Professor Ward, and many other distinguished men. A telegram
was read from the retiring president, Sir Wm. Dawson, of Montreal,
congratulating the association and Manchester on this year's meeting.
The new president, Sir H. Roscoe, having been introduced to the
audience, was heartily applauded.
The president, in his inaugural address, said Manchester, distinguished
as the birthplace of two of the greatest discoveries of modern science,
welcomed the visit of the British Association for the third time. Those
discoveries were the atomic theory of which John Dalton was the author,
and the most far-reaching scientific principle of modern times, namely,
that of the conservation of energy, which was given to the world about
the year 1842 by Dr. Joule. While the place suggested these reminders,
the time, the year of the Queen's jubilee, excited a feeling of
thankfulness that they had lived in an age which had witnessed an
advance in our knowledge of nature and a consequent improvement in the
physical, moral, and intellectual well-being of the people hitherto
unknown.