SECTION A. 



2.— PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 

 Bv Professor P. D. Hahx. Ph.D.. M.A. 



The section of our Association of which I have the honour to be 

 President, includes, besides Chemistry, also Astronomy, Mathematics, 

 Meteorology and Physics. Since each of those Sciences comprises 

 so extensive a subject that man's life is too short to penetrate into 

 all branches of any one of those Sciences, it does not require further 

 explanation on my part why I shall not and cannot attempt to give 

 a review, however brief, of the progress of those Sciences. The 

 programme of the papers of our section refers to all those Sciences, 

 and subjects of the different branches of all those Sciences will be 

 discussed during the present congress. I shall, therefore, limit my- 

 self in this address to Chemistry, to the study and promotion of 

 which I have devoted the best part of my life. 



It is customary that the President of a section includes in his 

 address a review of the progress for the last year or years of the 

 Science which he professes. At the outset I shall give you the 

 reasons which have induced me to deviate from this custom. The 

 professional scientist, who carefully peruses the scientific periodicals, 

 is regularly kept informed of this progress, and the non-professional 

 scientist finds in the excellent reports of the meetings of the British 

 Association, and of similar organisations in other countries, ample 

 information on this subject, namely, the progress of research and the 

 results of investigations in the several departments of Science. That 

 ■excellent scientific publication, Nature, supplies its readers annually 

 also with a general review of the progress of Chemistry. Here in 

 South Africa are very few, if any, to be found, who have time, leisure, 

 means and energy for carrying on original research, and we are 

 therefore here greatly dependent upon the reports on the work done 

 at the numerous seats of intense scientific activity of Europe. The 

 professional scientist finds a detailed account of the progress of 

 Chemistry in Richard Meyer's " Jahrbiicher der Chemie," an annual 

 publication, which I warmly recommend to my colleagues, the Pro- 

 fessors and Teachers of Chemistry. Instead of giving on this occa- 

 sion a general review of the progress of Chemistry during the last 

 years. I intend reporting on the present state of the studv of Chemistry 

 in South Africa, and shall refer more in detail to a number of prob- 

 lems which fall more particularly into the sphere of work and re- 

 .search of those who have devoted themselves to the studv of Chemis- 

 try and its application to metallurgy, agriculture and physiology. 

 The present occasion appears to be particularly favourable for giving 



