LORD MAYOR'S DAY.*

MY LORD MAYOR:

I RISE, at the request of my brethren of the diplomatic corps, to make our united acknowledgments to you for the honor of the last toast. My respected colleagues present are so well acquainted with the English language, that any one of them could have performed the duty in the most creditable and acceptable manner. Since, however, they have desired me to speak for them, I have much pleasure in assuring you that the members of the diplomatic corps present derive the highest satisfaction from being permitted to partake the splendid hospitality of this important occasion. It has been justly remarked by the right honorable gentleman at the head of her majesty's government, (Sir Robert Peel,) that the importance of this great commercial emporium is felt throughout the civilized world. We are all aware that nothing which deeply interests the city of London can be matter of indifference to any foreign country. There is not one of us who can enter your resorts of business without meeting several of his countrymen; not one of us, representing a maritime state, who can go down to your crowded quays, without beholding the flag of his country at many a masthead. The prosperity or adversity of this great emporium has its influence in every country we represent, nay, in the remotest region and most distant island on the face of the globe. On the other hand, by the same powerful - I had almost called it mysterious sympathy of trade, the condi

* Reply to a toast complimentary to the foreign ministers at the lord mayor s dinner on the 9th of November, 1842.

tion of every considerable foreign country is felt upon your exchange. You and they prosper together, and, as Cicero remarks of the commercial relations of Rome and the Asiatic states, "Ruere illa non possunt ut hæc non eodem labefactata motu concidunt."

It is one of the happiest results of the modern civilization, that it has multiplied the ties of mutual interest which unite the families of men. In the ancient world, the word stranger was synonymous with enemy; in modern times, it more commonly means customer. To this result, owing mainly, perhaps, to the prevalence of a religion of peace and good will, the spirit of trade has also largely contributed. While those powerful ancient despotisms, which, one at a time, successively overshadowed a large part of the human race, have been, in the progress of ages, resolved into a large family of states, politically independent of each other, the influence of a world-embracing commerce has, in modern times, guarantied the peace and safety of the common ocean, and, to some extent, reunited the different nations, for their mutual benefit, into one great commercial republic.

It is in the nature of things that this community of interest should be accompanied with feelings of mutual respect and kindness, which are so well calculated, in their turn, to produce a still greater extension of commercial intercourse. I cannot but congratulate your lordship upon the good understanding which exists at this moment between all the principal nations. There must always be minor subjects of discussion, territorial or commercial, between powerful states, belonging to the same national family; but there is certainly nothing in the relations to each other of the leading governments which threatens the slightest disturbance of the general peace. And if you will allow me to say a single word in my individual capacity, I cannot but express the liveliest satisfaction, that the matters which have, for a good many years, been the subject of a perplexed and embarrassing discussion between her majesty's government and the United States, have, within a few months, been happily adjusted on conditions honorable and advantageous to both parties.

In conclusion, my lord mayor, permit me, on behalf of my brethren of the diplomatic corps, to tender to you our best wishes for the success of your administration of this honorable trust, assured as we are that when, at the close of the year, it shall pass to your successor, the ancient escutcheon of this great metropolis, now committed to your keeping, will be found without a stain.

THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.*

MR PRESIDENT:

I RISE with real diffidence before a company like this. Your worthy ex-president (Mr Murchison) has very ingeniously established a claim to the favor of geologists, on behalf of my much respected colleague, the ambassador of France, in consequence of the allusion to transition rocks, in his excellency's History of the Fronde. I do not know, sir, that I can set up any claim to your good will, in reference to transition rocks, but there is a certain primitive rock in my native state, on which I never think but with admiration and gratitude; on which a band of pilgrims from old England, above two hundred years ago, first set foot, when they came to found a free state in the new world, and brought the language, the laws, and the religion of England to the western hemisphere.

I feel truly grateful to you, Mr President, and to my friend, your distinguished associate, who has just taken his seat, (Mr Lyell,) for the honorable manner in which he has mentioned me to the company, in connection with the scientific surveys of my native state. Personally, he has done me more than justice. The work was first undertaken under one of my enlightened predecessors, (Governor Lincoln,) and two editions of Professor Hitchcock's first geological survey of Massachusetts were published under his administration.

a wish was expressed some years afterwards, by Mr Hitchcock, to be permitted to make a renewed survey of the state,

Reply to a complimentary toast from Mr (now Sir Charles) Lyell, at the anniversary dinner of the Geological Society of London, Henry Warburton, Esq., M. P., (president of the society,) in the chair.

in consequence of the progress of the science in the interval, I had indeed the satisfaction, as far as I was able, in the office which I then filled by the favor of my fellow-citizens, to encourage him in this undertaking, the credit of which, of course, is due to himself and the legislature of Massachusetts; and I think I may, without impropriety, claim for the government of that little state, (for, with a population not much exceeding seven hundred thousand, it must, of course, deserve that name, in comparison even with the smallest of the leading states of Europe,) the credit of having evinced great liberality in the encouragement of science, particularly that branch of it to which your society is devoted.

The geological survey of Massachusetts was originally projected in reference to the construction of a map of the state. The process of triangulation was carried on, at great public expense, for several years, and with it a most laborious and extensive series of astronomical observations was executed. From these materials a map of Massachusetts has been prepared, and is now, I am informed, in the hands of the engraver. I trust in due season it will reach the hands of men of science abroad, and furnish new proof of the disposition of the legislature of Massachusetts to encourage these interesting and important researches. In addition to the geological survey and the map of the commonwealth, a highly intelligent commission has been employed on the forest trees, on the general botany, and on the zoölogy of Massachusetts, in all its branches; and at the same time, the agriculture of the state has been the subject of a report, which is favorably known in this country.

I ought, perhaps, to apologize for dwelling so long on these topics, after the handsome manner in which you, sir, as well as Mr Lyell, and your late president, in his instructive discourse this morning, were pleased to speak on the subject of the general cultivation of science, and particularly of geological science, in the United States. Mr Lyell has done but justice to the zeal and liberality shown by the states visited by him, some proof of which is before the British public, especially in the volumes of the noble publication now in