The "inaugural address" of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science was delivered at Edinburgh on Wednes- day by Sir W. Thomson. His address was mainly occupied with accounts of the great benefit derived by the world from purely scientific and apparently infructuous investigations, and of the achievements of the year in science, the most striking of which is the evidence collected, now almost irresistible, of the nature of comets. It appears to be demonstrated by the spectrum analysis that the nucleus of comets is a driving train of meteoric stones, and that the tails are trains of minute planets, of which a few thousands or millions strike the earth every 14th of November when we pass through the tail of Tempel's comet. The tails are illuminated by sunlight, according to many conditions, one of which is the tactical arrangement of the rushing squadrons of meteorolites.
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