FIRST WINTER MEETING. -OCTOBER 13th, 1903. 



"THE WONDERS OF RADIUM. '—PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS BY 

 Mb. SIDNEY HARVEY. 



At the conclusiou of the business of the annual 

 meetinc^, hfld in the Reference Library of the 

 Beaney Fnstitute, thepresideDtialaddress wasgiven 

 by Mr. Harvey. Amongst those who were present 

 we noticed Messrs. H. M. Chapman, W. H. Xether- 

 clift. Marsh, Randerson. lusteo, F. C. Snell, Sage, 

 Graham, Fiddian, Hawkins, Rev. A. .1. Galpin, 

 Misses Sworn, Abbott, Holmes, Phillpotts, Mrs. 

 Harvey, Mrs. Bowler, Messrs. A. Lander (hon. 

 secretary), 0. Buckingham, and H. Langston, etc. 



Mr. S. Harvey, who was very cordially received, 

 said at that point he supposed he ought to 

 acknowledge the honour they had done him in 

 appointing him again to the presidency of that 

 S iciety. He ould only say that the confidence 

 reposei in him merited confidence on his part, 

 and he hoped if he was spared to fulfil another 

 year as president of that Society that he would 

 make himself as acceptable and useful as pos- 

 sible. But in occupying that position that 

 night he was met with two discouragements. In 

 the first place one was fully conscious that no one 

 could fill the office of president of a society for 

 fourteen years running without having long ago 

 exhausted any interest attaching to his utterances 

 (no, no) ; and also it was very difllcult year after 

 year to draw up an acceptable presidential add: ess. 

 He had been looking back on the past session, and 

 trying to see there some subjects on which to 

 hang a discussion that night— subjects of general 

 and scientific interest — and as that Society was a 

 working Society, and as butmy formed, and should 

 form, one of the most important tranches of study, 

 he would make some allusion to botanical work. 

 With regard to the introduction of informal 

 excursions, he might say that these had been 

 satisfactory. Mr.W. H. Hammond, just before that 

 meeting, had put into his hand some valuable 

 observations aud remark -i upon the condition of the 

 surrounding flora in this neighbourhood, and his 

 experiences with regard to the rare and uncommon 

 plAnts discovered here. His paper, however, was 

 so valuable, that he (the speaker) did not feel 

 justified in making any extracts from it, because 

 he hoped before long they would have it read in 

 full (appUuse). He could not, however, pass it 

 over without alluding to the position of botany in 

 regard to that Society. Mr. Hammond had 

 already brought before them some studies respect- 

 ing violt-ts. especially those species that were more 

 particularly growing in thhlr midst. The diifer- 

 ences in t he speci fie chnraour-^f.f violets wt-re of an 

 imp rtaijt nature, and lie wool I like t) say that 

 tSey needed to observe those difFe^enc^'S far more 

 clus- l.v than they had been Hccustomel to do. 'The 

 speab-r said it wouM nev* r do to restrict; their 

 botanical studies 1 1 the naming of plant.=, on the 

 identification of spt^cies given to them in their 

 standard woik on botany, for however 

 able tiiose descriptions might be, they must 



expect to find, not only with regard to 

 violets but in nearly all the botanical 

 orders, divergencies in some particulars. 

 If they went back to Sowerby's time, the whole 

 of the species of violets dealt with in that great 

 book could be counted on the fingers of the two 

 hands, but they could now claim that the clear 

 varieties of violets were thr^e times as numerous, 

 going to show that a society like that had a great 

 deal of work before it in observing the divergencies 

 of species. Another branoh which belonged to 

 their Society was the discovery of flint im- 

 plements and they had two workers in their 

 midst who looked after those very interesting 

 prehistoric lecords. One gentleman suppressed 

 his name simply for the reason that he wished to 

 submit his specimens to a first class expert before 

 bringing them to the Society and he had already 

 collected rather largely. He mentioned that 

 fact to encourage those who had passed by those 

 things, in future not to throw away anything- 

 that might turn out to be a flint instrument, but 

 to submit it first to an expert. Mr. VV. H. 

 Hammond was continuing his work in that 

 direction, and had exhibited some interestino- 

 specimens in their museum. Mr. Harvey alluded 

 to the very remarkable progress which was bein" 

 made in the way of glass working, and remarked 

 that as a result of recent experiments, he 

 thought it was evident that the human 

 hand, at any rate in that era of civiliza- 

 tion, had not lost its cunning (applause). 

 Continuing, the speaker remarked that public 

 attention had recently been directed to the 

 changes taking place below the surface of the 

 earth, and due solely to physical and chemical 

 action. They wore accustomed to consider 

 a mass of rock, as aggregaticns cf matter 

 deposited by water or some other force, 

 and as being in the same internal condi- 

 tion to-day as when that deposit took 

 place. For instance, if they walked from Heme 

 Bay to Keculvers they found large ijuaDtitieb of 

 crystals at the foot of the cliffs, and especially 

 after a storm. Hitherto they had been inclined 

 t> think that those ciy.-tils had been buried there 

 when the strata was deposited, but now there was 

 a growing conviction that there was below the 

 surface of the ground, apirt from any action of 

 life, a great deal of change going on, and it might 

 go so far as to cause recrystalisat on in some of 

 the rocks and other remarktble appeaninccs very 

 difficult to expUin in any oth^rway. This change, 

 he said, might prove important as resard agri- 

 culture. It was all very well to say that they had 

 a living rrganism which could extract from the 

 soil its nutriment ; that they could connect with 

 the soil nutritive riualities. artificial manures, and 

 so on, which would assist the gro.rth of a crop. 

 But there was no doubt tha'. there was an inter- 



