lO Dixon, Inaugural Address. ^ 



chloride. I think the mean result will be close to our 

 measurement, and that silver will come down in the world 

 and suffer a depreciation of half a per cent. 



In conclusion I should like to make a few remarks on 

 some matters more directly concerning our Society and 

 its proceedings. Our membership is not so large as it 

 once was, and I have heard more than once in the last 

 ten years dismal forebodings of imminent decay. We 

 may have been too conservative towards new ideas, we 

 may have been too slow to meet the changing conditions 

 of the city's life, we may have leaned too much to philo- 

 sophy and too little to literature; but I am convinced that 

 as a scientific society there is nothing vitally wrong with 

 us. Numbers count ; we cannot carry on our usefulness 

 unless new recruits are ready to join us, and every member 

 should make it a matter of personal pride to introduce 

 friends to our meetings. But numbers are not the first 

 consideration ; we must maintain and if possible increase 

 the interest of our proceedings. I think we should have 

 more papers down on our agenda, though I am not 

 anxious to increase our printer's bill. We need not desire 

 to be the sole channel of publication of communications 

 made to us. Indeed I would ask our scientific workers to 

 bring their discoveries before us as evidence of good-will, 

 but, as editors say, 7iot necessarily for publication. I 

 would specially plead for the introduction, not of the 

 corrected article, but of the rough proof; for the informal 

 discussion of experimental ways and means ; for science 

 in the making. It is at this stage that new ideas, even 

 crude ideas, falling on prepared ground, may be so fruit- 

 ful. We need not be frightened of giving our valuable 

 ideas away : it will be give and take, and besides, ideas 

 are only valuable to those prepared to work them out. 



