94 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



year presents a feature of entire novelty and extreme interest, inas- 

 much as the sister association of the United States of America — still 

 mourning the loss of her illustrious president, Professor Cope — and 

 some other learned societies have made special arrangements to allow 

 of their members coming here to join us. I need hardly say how 

 welcome their presence is, or how gladly we look forward to their 

 taking part in our discussions and aiding us by interchange of 

 thought. To such a meeting the term " international " seems al- 

 most misappliedi It may rather be described as a family gathering, 

 in which our relatives more or less distant in blood, but still inti- 

 mately connected with us by language, literature, and habits of 

 thought, have spontaneously arranged to take part. The domain 

 of science is no doubt one in which the various nations of the civil- 

 ized world meet upon equal terms, and for which no other passport 

 is required than some evidence of having striven toward the advance- 

 ment of natural knowledge. Here, on the frontier between the two 

 great English-speaking nations of the world, who is there that does 

 not inwardly feel that anything which conduces to an intimacy 

 between the representatives of two countries, both of them actively 

 engaged in the pursuit of science, may also, through such an inti- 

 macy, react on the affairs of daily life and aid in preserving those 

 cordial relations that have now for so many years existed between 

 the great American Republic and the British Islands, with which 

 her early foundations are indissolubly connected? The present year 

 has witnessed an interchange of courtesies which has excited the 

 warmest feelings of approbation on both sides of the Atlantic — I 

 mean the return to its proper custodians of one of the most interest- 

 ing of the relics of the Pilgrim Fathers, the log of the Mayflower. 

 May this return, trifling in itself, be of happy augury as testifying 

 to the feelings of mutual regard and esteem which animate the 

 hearts both of the donors and of the recipients! 



At our meeting in Montreal the president was an investigator 

 who had already attained to a foremost place in the domains of 

 physics and mathematics, Lord Rayleigh. In his address he dealt 

 mainly with topics such as light, heat, sound, and electricity, on 

 which he is one of our principal authorities. His name and that of 

 his fellow-worker, Professor Ramsay, are now and will in all future 

 ages be associated with the discovery of the new element, argon. Of 

 the ingenious methods by which that discovery was made, and the 

 existence of argon established, this is not the place to speak. One 

 can only hope that the element will not always continue to justify 

 its name by its inertness. The claims of such a leader in physical 

 science as Lord Rayleigh to occupy the presidential chair are self- 

 evident, but possibly those of his successor on this side of the Atlantic 



