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ORIGIN OF VEGETATION IN NITHSDALE. 
It was remitted to the Council to appoint a committee to 
compile a Catalogue of the Antiquities of the District, with one to 
make a collection of photographs of the local antiquities, and 
to issue reply post-cards to ascertain the feeling of the members 
regarding the best evening for the meetings. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. By the President, Professor 
Scott-ELLioT. 
ADVANCES IN SCIENCE: ORIGIN OF VEGETATION IN NITHSDALE. 
This last year has been eventful and epoch-making ; at no 
time since the year of Waterloo has the world been so disturbed, 
but at the same time 1905 has seen an extraordinary advance in 
science. It is curious how events seem to crowd at the begin- 
nings and middles of centuries. In 1605 Bacon published “ Ad- 
vancement of Learning,’’ and “ Don Quixote ’’ also appeared. 
In that year France had just finished for a time, and Holland was 
still engaged in, the Wars of the Reformation. In 1656-58 there 
was war between France and Spain; Dunkirk taken by Crom- 
well; Cardinal Mazarin and Turenne were in their prime. Yet 
this was the flowering period of Descartes, Galileo, Copernicus, 
not to speak of Milton, Moliere, etc. In 1705 Blenheim and 
Ramillies were fought, and Halley had so far mastered astronomy 
as to predict the return of his comet, which appeared, up to time, 
in 1758. In 1756-7 Rossbach Leuthen was fought, England 
abandoned Hanover, whilst Linnaeus, Buffon, and Voltaire were 
in full work. 1805 was the year of Trafalgar and Austerlitz, and 
the same year saw Laplace’s Celestial Astronomy and Monge’s 
Algebraic Geometry. In 1857-8 the Indian Mutiny and Crimean 
War did not interfere with the publication of the Origin of Species. 
During this year of 1905 the Russo-Japanese War has, for a time 
at least, ended, but revolution in Russia, threatenings of civil 
war in Austria and Norway, have not ceased, and anxiety exists all 
through Europe and Asia. Yet this year has seen the first plain 
statement of a theory which, by its simplicity and by its bold- 
ness, far surpasses any previous conception of the human brain. 
That is the new theory of matter, lucidly explained by George 
Darwin at Cape Town and Johannesburg. That the supposed 
indivisible atom is really a world of itself, composed of hundreds 
of electrons. That these electrons cannot be called material 
