PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. XCV. 



seen, double the size of a man's head, on the explosion of which 

 the hail came down. Experiments have been lately made in 

 growing electrified wheat by a system of wires stretched across 

 the field on poles, the result being an improvement in quality 

 and an increased yield of 29 to 40 per cent, in the crop. In 

 October last an International conference on electrical units and 

 standards was held in London, and important resolutions were 

 carried, which will, it is hoped, remove many of the difficulties 

 which have arisen owing to the rapid development of this branch 

 of science. 



CHEMISTRY. 



I am glad to say that the subject of radium set for the Cecil 

 Medal last year has produced a better competition than we have 

 yet had. I hope that it shows the growth of a more general and 

 stronger interest in scientific subjects amongst Dorset men, and 

 also a better appreciation of the liberal efforts of the founder of 

 the medal. Some good essays have also been sent in for the 

 Mansel-Pleydell Medal. A Radium Institute, with which our 

 Hon. Member, Sir Frederick Treves, is prominently associated, 

 has been founded, and will shortly come into active work, both 

 for the purpose of research and also as a curative establishment 

 by means of radium, which has been proved in certain diseases 

 to be a more powerful means of cure than the X-rays. A method 

 has been devised of counting the particles emitted by radium, 

 the results of which agree well with those derived from the 

 observation of their scintillations on a screen. Helium has been 

 liquefied and kept in the liquid state for some hours. Aluminium 

 is coming more into use, and can now be rolled into sheets even 

 thinner than tinfoil, which it will probably to a great extent 

 replace for many purposes. The experiments which caused the 

 belief that lithium was, under the action of radium emanation, 

 produced from copper, have been repeated, with negative results, 

 so that this statement must be taken to require confirmation. 

 Alloys of silicon with iron, and also with other metals, are found 

 to resist the effect of acids in a remarkable degree, and arc, 



