Section B.— CHEMISTRY, GEOLOGY, METALLURGY, 

 MINERALOGY AND GEOGRAPHY. 



President of the Section. — H. Kynaston, M.A., F.G.S. 



TUESDAY, JULY 6. 



The Section having assembled. Mr. R. T. A. Innes, F.R.A.S., 

 F.R.S.E., President of the Association, expressed his sense of 

 the loss that had befallen the Section and the whole Association 

 in the decease of the President of the Section a week ago. He 

 moved that the Section express its condolence with the bereaved 

 family of the late Mr. Kynaston. 



The motion was agreed to in silence Ijy a standing vote. 



Professor D. F. dii Toit IN'Ialherbe, M.A.. Ph.D., Secretary 

 of the Section, then read the following address, which had been 

 prepared for delivery by the late President : — 



RADIO-ACTIVITY IN ITS BEARING ON 

 GEOLOGICAL PROBLEMS. 



During recent years an entirely new and novel branch of 

 chemistry has sprung up — one might almost say, an entirely new 

 science. The discovery of Radium and Radio-activity, involv- 

 ing the remarkable phenomenon of atomic disintegration and 

 the consequent spontaneous liberation of energy in the form of 

 heat, has not only profoundly affected Chemistry and Physics 

 in opening up some of the most fundamental cjuestions concern- 

 ing the ultimate constitution of matter, but it has given the 

 geologist good reason to pause, and he cannot help seeing that 

 the study of Radio-activity is btnnid to considerably modify his 

 outlook upon various terrestrial jjroblems. It has put things 

 in a new light, and in this new light they have been re-considered, 

 and are still presumably undergoing treatment by authorities 

 such as Professors Strutt, Joly, Holmes, Chamljerlin, and 

 others, and it is the duty of every geologist to fall in with the 

 new line of thought, at least as far as it affects his particular 

 science. 



The whole subject, however, although still (|uite a young 

 one. is far too large and intricate to be gone into in detail here. 

 I do not propose to go into the chemical side of the subject — • 

 that can safely be left to the Chemists themselves^ljut I would 

 like to point out briefly the very important bearing which the 

 phenomena of radio-activity have upon various important geologi- 

 cal questions. 



The old problems of the internal heat of the earth, and the 

 condition and the constitution of its interior, have to be con- 

 sidered afresh in the light of radio-activity. The present imper- 

 fection, however, of our knowledge of the distribution of radium 



