t902. The British Association iii Beljast. 261 



of Belfast, the great Tyndallian pronouncement of '74, and 

 the need of systematic scientific education for the British and 

 Irish people, postponed to revive the flagging attention of the 

 members towards the close. As it was, the concluding para- 

 graphs were delivered to a rapidly-decreasing audience. The 

 passages relating to scientific education served as an excellent 

 introduction to the subsequent deliberations of Section L, and 

 the President's generalization — that we lag behind the Ger- 

 mans, not in the inferiority of our great men, but in the want 

 of training for our "rank and file" — may be taken to heart 

 by naturalists as well as by physicists and chemists. 



THE EVENING LECTURES. 



Professor J. J. Thomson's lecture on Becquerel Rays (12th 

 September) is quite beyond the scope of this Magazine, but 

 we may at least pay a just tribute to the beautifully lucid way 

 in which a very difficult subject was expounded. But for the 

 unfortunate failure of one or two experiments, the lecture 

 would have been almost perfect. 



Professor Weldon's discourse (15th September) was an ex- 

 position of the statistical method applied to the phenomena 

 of Inheritance. As an example of ease and power in hand- 

 ling an abstruse and intricate subject, the lecture could not 

 fail to impress the audience, but we fear that few, excepting 

 the highly-trained mathematicians present, were able to 

 grasp the principles underlying Professor Weldon's researches. 

 The subject was beyond the capacity of the rank and file of 

 the Association in spite of the lecturer's ability and eloquence. 



Professor Miall's lecture to artizans on Gnats and Mos- 

 quitoes was a model of clear and simple teaching. The chief 

 points of the gnat's life-history, and of the relation between 

 gnats and malarial parasites, were brought home with just 

 enough illustration to fix the wonderful history in the minds 

 of the hearers, whose attention throughout was intense. Not 

 to the Belfast artizans only, but to any science teachers fortu- 

 nate enough to be present, the lecture was in the highest 

 sense educational. Perhaps the Members of the Association 

 wish that the authorities would not consider their receptivity 

 so much greater than that of the " artizans." 



