POSTSCRIPT.
SATURDAY NIGHT.
The British Association for the Advancement of Science meets at South- ampton on Thursday next, the 10th instant. The meeting promises to be attractive, and well supported by the public. The President is Sir Rode- rick I. Murchison; Professor Faraday, Sir John Herschel!, Professor Owen, and Sir John Richardson, are to preside in four of the Sections; Professor Willis, of Cambridge, is to head the Mechanical Section. All these are men of profound research, solid practical knowledge, and the most enlarged views. From Scotland comes Sir David Brewster; from Ireland, Sir R. Kane, Sir W. Hamilton, Dr. Lloyd, Dr. Robinson, and others. The Work of the meeting, therefore, is sure to be effective at once in point of interest and of real utility. The list of eminent foreigners who come on purpose to attend the scientific congress is brilliant. From Denmark there will be Oersted, the first discoverer of the connexion between electri- city and magnetism, and Foschhamer, the chemist and geologist; from Sweden, Retzius, the physiologist and anatomist, and Svanberg, the che- mist; from St. Petersburg, the great Siberian explorer, Dr. Von Middendorf; to whom was given the last Victoria gold medal of the London Geographi- cal Society; from Modena, Matteucci, the celebrated electro-physiologist; from Basle, Schkinbein, the distinguished chemist, inventor of the explosive "gUn-cotton," which is likely to change the art of war and to be of much use in mining operations; from Berlin, H. Rosa, the great analytical che- mist; from France, Dumas, the first living chemist of his country, with others. The principal residents of the neighbourhood have promised their support; among them, Lord Palmerston, Lord Ashburton, Lord Winches- ter, the Bishop of Oxford, the Speaker, Sir George Staunton, and many more. Prince Albert, LLD., is expected to visit all the Sections.
Unusual pains have been taken with the accommodations for visiters. The Local Committee have arranged a registration of lodgings which the proprietors undertake to let at moderate charges. The South-western Railway Company have subscribed largely to the reception-fund, and have placed rooms in their station at the service of the Council. The South- western Navigation Company have lent the Association a steamer, for a trip to the Isle of Wight.
Some of these particulars are stated by the Times. That old satirist of the Association seems to have mellowed and softened its view; which is a change good for its own credit as well as the advantage of the scientific body. There was not much sense in the annual attacks on the professors; and if there was wit, the very clever writers of the Times can always con- trive to weave amusing texts on subjects less stale than jokes about the minor researches of science. The Leading Journal, indeed, still mingles pleasantry, about cheap beds and railway noises, with its less hostile announcements; partly because it cannot keep serious about any- thing except the Poor-law, partly for a trick of policy in which it perse- veres—the Times never acknowledges itself in the wrong; and now its badi- nage is used, we presume, to conceal its altered animus in an aspect of gay impenitence.
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