VI. 



Notes from the British Association, 1894. 



THE British Association is always a medley, and this characteristic 

 is very apparent in the addresses delivered before it and the 

 papers read at it. There are always some people who have something 

 to say and some who have to say something. There are those who 

 have manner without matter, and those who have matter without 

 manner. Its great mission is to interest the public in science. The 

 general public go there to be as scientific as they can. The scientific 

 public go there to frivol as much as they may. It serves many 

 useful purposes, but among these the least is to bring new scientific 

 results before the scientific public. But although one need not expect 

 any large bulk of novel and interesting scientific matter, there are 

 always some interesting messages from the scientific world to the 

 public, and not a few matters of general scientific interest. 



We propose to give here, not an account of the meeting that 

 shall pretend to any completeness, but notes on such matters as 

 seemed of special interest to our representatives at the sections. As 

 we have dealt elsewhere with Lord Salisbury's address, we shall 

 pass straight to the sectional meetings. 



Neglected Mineralogy. 



The President of the Geological Section represents a neglected 

 branch of science, and Mr. Lazarus Fletcher made excellent use of 

 his opportunity in a direct plea for mineralogy by pointing out the 

 lack of opportunity for the study of it in this country, and in an 

 equally cogent indirect plea by the brilliancy of his own exposition. 



Having given a Homerically imposing alphabetical list of living 

 German scientists, from Arzruni to Zirkel, whose names are familiar 

 as distinguished mineralogists, Mr. Fletcher went on to contrast the 

 wealth of educational and research equipment of Germany with the 

 apathetic treatment which mineralogy is receiving in the British Isles. 

 In every German university there is a professor of pure mineralogy, 

 while other continental nations are not far behind Germany in their 

 practical appreciation of the subject. But here, throughout Great 

 Britain and Ireland, the imposing number of the professorships in 

 the science amounts to tivo ; and in only one of the two universities is 

 the subject allowed to rank with other sciences in the examinations 

 for degrees. 



