2 Dixon, Inaugural Address. * 



their colleagues on what was happening round the whole 

 horizon ; and the modern president has usually spoken 

 either of that portion of science familiar to him by his 

 own work, or on that fruitful subject — the fate of the 

 nation whose government, commerce, and education, are 

 conducted by persons unchastened by research. The 

 addresses of the Sectional Presidents, spoken to audiences 

 of experts, have followed the lead of the Presidential 

 address, and no longer attempt a survey of their respective 

 sciences. 



I would propose, then, in virtue of the brief authority 

 vested in me by the Society, in the first place to speak 

 shortly on some of the work recently done in chemical 

 science, and especially that on the properties and reactions 

 of gases at high temperatures, and secondly to make a 

 few remarks on the character of our own proceedings. 



The work on radio-activity has advanced chiefly on 

 the lines of the disintegration theory, which has proved 

 itself most valuable not only in suggesting the origin of 

 radium itself, but in connecting together the series of 

 substances arising from the spontaneous changes in the 

 radio-elements. And if in the past we in Manchester 

 have not taken the lead in radio-active researches, we can 

 feel much confidence that no reproach on this score can 

 be made against us in the future ; for to-night we most 

 warmly welcome Professor Rutherford as a candidate for 

 our membership. The birth-place of the Atomic Theory 

 need feel no disintegrating shock. The laws of chemical 

 combination, the gas laws, isomerism, stereo-chemistry 

 and other generalisations demand the chemical molecule 

 and the atom. We have not got rid of Dalton's atoms, 

 we are beginning to see how wonderfully they are 

 constructed ! 



