Genre:

Poetry, Serial

Subjects:

Societies, Geology, Palaeontology, Astronomy, Agriculture, Political Economy, Ethnology, Human Development, Botany, Ornithology, Anatomy, Physiology

    Sonnet ten, 'Exeter, August, 1869', reflects on the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Explains that the 'Devonian group' (evoking the name of a geological period) has now 'broken up' and its '"Stars" have vanished from the West'. Adds that the savants no longer debate such questions as 'agricultural labourers' wants', 'carbonif'rous labyryntodonts', 'man and his primaeval ways', 'the sun, the stars, the worlds in distant skies', the 'epiglotis, and the tidal wave', and anticipates the meeting of the association in 1870, 'Huxley's year'.