Genre:

News-Commentary, Drollery; Reportage, Spoof

Subjects:

Societies, Scientific Practitioners, Instruments, Meteorology, Mathematics

    A satire on the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Reports that the association is 'still brandishing the torch of science in the eyes of a flabbergasted world'. Reports on the association's discussion of costs for 'watching' and 'repairing' the 'meteorometer' and refers calculation of expenses to 'Mathematical Section D'. Subjects discussed include the association's payment for 'coloured drawings of sectional cuttings' and the question of whether William Whewell had cut himself off from the association and thus 'cut all sections at once' and achieved a 'sectional cutting'. Reports on the association's excursion to a local coal-hole. Events include Professor Slowcoach's paper on the 'ordinary hinge as applied to common doors'. Members of the association record the 'curious' and repeated 'phenomenon' of a round opening appearing in the roof accompanied by a voice shouting 'Be-low'. Discussion of a 'large black heap' subsequently formed on floor.