Section B. 



CHEMISTRY AND MINERALOGY. 



Address by the President, 

 WILLIAM M. HAMLET, F.I.C., F.C.S., 



Government Analyst, N.S.W, 



When I became aware of the honour conferred upon me in 

 being elected to the presidency of this Section, the question 

 arose in my mind as to what the scope and character of the 

 time-honoured Presidential Address ought to be. Should we 

 bring- before us the old platitudes and mystic half-truths 

 embodied in the obsolete theories of the past, or, on the con- 

 trary, should we not try to obtain a clear presentment of 

 recent advances in the science .'* and to recognise, in fact, the 

 real benefits conferred upon the race by our increased 

 knowledge; to recognise that the advance onward is always 

 towards raising and bettering the lives of those around us, to 

 finally become the heritage of those who follow us in the 

 chain of fife. Nor is it the only function of a President to 

 convey to his hearers the resumt of the year's work ; this 

 may be better done by the numerous and increasingly-bulky 

 year-books. Who amongst us does not remember the revered 

 name of many a President of the older Association in Britain 

 who presented the everyday facts of our science in such a 

 clear and attractive manner that we thought no more of the 

 toil and the unyielding patience required in our work, but 

 only of the high aims and possibilities, of the ultimate unity 

 and full relationship of all natural knowledge. This sense 

 sublime — 



" Of something far more deeply interfused, 

 Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 

 And the round ocean and the living air, 

 And the blue sky, and in the mind of man : 

 A motion and a spirit, that impels 

 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 

 And rolls through all things" — 



was in no small degree fostered by such annual addresses. 

 How many of our past Presidents have there not been who 



