2 INAUGUllAL ADDKE3S. 



affected by the new knowledge which we are acquiring. And, again^ 

 iiew as the science is, its advance is starthngly rapid, and it is well to 

 leview at comparatively short intei-vals the positions which have been 

 attained by recent espenment. 



Besides these general considerations, I think it is not out of place 

 to mention one which is of more particular interest to this meeting of 

 Australasians. I doubt if there are many here present to-night who- 

 realise that a very considerable share in the development of the new 

 science is due to men bom and educated in this countiy. Easily first 

 of these stands Ernest Rutherford, the New Zealander, now Professor 

 of Physics at Manchester. To him the world owes many of the funda- 

 mental conceptions of the subject; and no investigations have been so 

 powerful and so brilliant as his. Perhaps it is only the student of 

 radio-activity who can fully appreciate the excellence of his work, 

 yet when he recently received a Nobel prize I am sure there was no 

 member of the scientific world who did not appreciate the justice of the 

 award. But he does not stand alone; there are other Australasians 

 born and bred who have made worthy contributions to radio-active 

 science. Dr. Pollock is to address one of our sections to-morrow, and 

 besides his name I may mention Kleeman, Laby, Madsen, and Durack. 

 When we consider the sum total of the work done by all these men, we 

 have good reason to be proud of our countiy's product; and we may 

 well take a special interest in the subject which they have helped to 

 in.vestigate. 



With your permission, therefore, I propose to devote some time 

 this evening to an examination of the great facts of the new science, 

 and of the lessons which they teach. It is no easy task which I set 

 myself, but I hope that the interest of the subject will to some extent 

 liide my own inadequacy. I have just one more preliminary remark to 

 make. I would warn you, before I begin, that I mean to stretch the 

 compass of my address until it includes, with what plausibility it may, 

 some reference to the general condition of research work in this 

 countiy. 



As is implied by its name the new science deals with certain 

 radiations of which those due to the constant activity of radium and 

 uranium may be taken as typical. They differ, in some important 

 respects, from the longer known radiations of light and heat. Their 

 existence was practically unknown to us a few years ago, and the 

 science of radio-activity may be considered to have come into existence 

 when Becquerel first experimented on the action of uranium on a 

 photographic plate in 1896. This is true in spite of the fact that the 

 cathode rays and the Rontgen rays have been investigated for many 



