Report of the Annual MeetingJ. Murray., 1843 - Science |
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Aberdeen acid amount of deaths Amphitherium Anemometer animal appear ascertained average annual amount average annual number British Association carbon carbonic acid carboniferous cause Cave Bear Cemeteries cent coal colour Committee contained cotton deaths by fever diseases District Dundee Edinburgh engine exhibited experiments feet females fish fossil genera genus Glasgow heat humerus Hyæna inches inhabitants instruments iron J. R. Forster John Robison Leith limestone lower jaw magnetic Manchester marriages mean population Measles Meteorological Observations molar mortality number of deaths number of males observatory obtained odd valves old red sandstone oxygen Perth phænomena portion present produced Prof Professor proportion of deaths Railway rays red sandstone registers Report rocks Scarlet Fever Schn Sir David Brewster Solander species specimens strata surface tables temperature tion total number towns tube Ursus Van Diemen's Land vegetable velocity whole deaths Zealand Zool zoology
Popular passages
Page vi - RECOMMENDATIONS. The General Committee shall appoint at each Meeting a Committee, which shall receive and consider the Recommendations of the Sectional Committees, and report to the General Committee the measures which they would advise to be adopted for the advancement of Science.
Page 108 - It being admitted on all hands that words are only the conventional signs of ideas, it is evident that language can only attain its end effectually by being permanently established and generally recognized. This consideration ought, it would seem, to have checked those who are continually attempting to subvert the established language of zoology by substituting terms of their own coinage.
Page 109 - Now in zoology^ no one person can subsequently claim an authority equal to that possessed by the person who is the first to define a new genus or describe a new species ; and hence it is that the name originally given, even though it may be inferior in point of elegance or expressiveness to those subsequently proposed, ought as a general principle to be permanently retained. To this consideration we ought to add the injustice of erasing the name originally selected by the person to whose labours...
Page 109 - Previous to that period, naturalists were wont to indicate species not by a name comprised in one word, but by a definition which occupied a sentence, the extreme verbosity of which method was productive of great inconvenience. It is true that one word sometimes sufficed for the definition of a species, but these rare cases were only binomial by accident and not by principle, and ought not therefore in any instance to supersede the binomial designations imposed by Linnaeus.
Page 109 - For these reasons, we have no hesitation in adopting as our fundamental maxim, the " law of priority," viz. § 1. The name originally given by the founder of a group or the describer of a species should be permanently retained, to the exclusion of all subsequent synonyms (with the exceptions about to be noticed) . Having laid down this principle, we must next inquire into the limitations which are found necessary in carrying it into practice.
Page 118 - Latin, but can be compared only to the puerile quibblings of the middle ages. It is contrary to the genius of all languages, which appear never to produce new words by spontaneous generation, but always to derive them from some other source, however distant or obscure. And it is peculiarly annoying to the etymologist, who after seeking in vain through the vast storehouses of human language for the parentage of such words, discovers at last that he has been pursuing an ignis fatuus.
Page v - To give a stronger impulse and a more systematic direction to scientific inquiry, — to promote the intercourse of those who cultivate Science in different parts of the British Empire, with one another, and with foreign philosophers, — to obtain a more general attention to the objects of Science, and a removal of any disadvantages of a public kind which impede its progress.
Page 42 - ... Physiology has sufficiently decisive grounds for the opinion, that every motion, every manifestation of force, is the result of a transformation of the structure or of its substance ; that every conception, every mental affection, is followed by changes in the chemical nature of the secreted fluids ; that every thought, every sensation, is accompanied by a change in the composition of the substance of the brain.
Page vii - PAPERS AND COMMUNICATIONS. The Author of any paper or communication shall be at liberty to reserve his right of property therein. ACCOUNTS. The Accounts of the Association shall be audited annually, by Auditors appointed by the Meeting.
Page 114 - ... Unless a species or jfroup is intelligibly defined when the name is given, it cannot be recognized by others, and the signification of the name is consequently lost Two things are necessary before a zoological term can acquire any authority, viz^ definition and publication. Definition properly implies a distinct exposition of essential characters, and in all cases we conceive this to be indispensable...