I908. The Bfitish Associdtion in Dubliju 221 



Ou the motion of Rev. R. A. Bullen, seconded by Mrs. Hobsou (Belfast), 

 a resolution was adopted, bringing under the notice of local societies the 

 necessity for preserving the fauna and flora of their respective districts 

 as against wanton destruction or careless or needless collecting. 



ON PERMANENT RECORDvS OF NATURAL HISTORY OR 

 OTHER OBSERVATIONvS BY MEANS OF THE CARD 



CATALOGUE SYSTEM. 



BY F. A. BEi:.i:.AMY, M.A., F.R.A.S. 



In this paper the importance of efficient research work by local socie- 

 ties was enforced. Each society can make a permanent county or 

 other district natural history record by the use of a card catalogue, stored 

 in appropriate cases, at some convenient centre. The catalogue should 

 contain all published references to the species of the local flora and 

 fauna, geological features, etc., and also the yearly additions to know- 

 ledge made by the members of the local society. 



WORK IN THE SECTIONS. 



Section C— Geology. 



In^the Geological Section, the most original feature was the 

 address of the President, Prof. J. Joly, F.R.S., which was an 

 exposition of personal research and reasoning on the relations 

 of " Uranium and Geology." He pointed out that the accu- 

 mulation of radium in the earth's crust, in great excess of 

 the proportion that can be conceived to exist in the earth as 

 a whole, may be accounted for by the rise of the hot radio- 

 active nuclei towards the surface in a period when convection- 

 currents were still possible. He quoted a number of measure- 

 ments made by himself to determine the radium-contents of 

 surface rocks, and enquired whether the world is heated 

 throughout by radio-thermal action. If, as is likel}^, uranium, 

 the parent or grandparent of radium, exists also in the core of 

 the earth, this central part is rising in temperature i but the 

 amount of heat added in a given time is always diminishing as 

 the uranium decay's. If this heat maintains the temperature 

 of layers round the core, its reduction will allow of the cooling 

 of these layers and the consequent giving off of a great amount 



