310 Mr. Solomon J. Solomon [Feb. 18, 



determined with precision, would give us some hope of laying bare 

 that innermost of secrets, the actual configuration of the charges in 

 the nucleus. 



The results I have described lie on the border line of physics mid 

 chemistry, and, although as a chemist I view with some dismay the 

 possibility of eighteen different mercuric chlorides, as a physicist it is 

 a great relief to find that Nature employs at least approximately 

 standard bricks in her operations of element building. 



[F. W. A.] 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, February 18, 1921. 



J. H. Balfour Browne, K.C. D.L. J. P. LL.D., Manager and 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Solomon J. Solomon, R.A. 

 Strategic Camouflage. 



[Abstract.] 



From so many points of view the war through which we have passed 

 was paradoxical. We picture it as a grimy war. The noblest figure 

 for us was a soldier in full kit covered with the sacred mud of 

 Flanders or the Somme. But on the other side of the line the 

 scenic artist had raised, like a canopy, acres of picturesque landscape. 

 And although this war scenery was exposed to the daylight, and 

 clear pictures of it were in the hands of all who were searching for 

 the minutest indications of military activity, it remained undetected 

 to the end. And when the end came nothing of this fairyland 

 remained which would signify anything to anyone w T ho had not 

 already probed its secret. True it was hedged round by protective 

 agencies. But, inevitable as all conversant with the technique of 

 modern war now know it to have been, so daringly original was 

 its conception that the efforts on its discovery (a few weeks before 

 the most critical time in the war) to get the knowledge home to- 

 those who could use it, made no headway against the assumption 

 that the multitude of Allied experts could not have been systematically 

 deceived for three long years. 



Everyone can take in an ordinary photograph at a glance, so it 



