14 PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



ships, and attained the high result of 93 per cent, completely 

 or partially successful. The attempt to ward off hail with 

 cannon in the Beaujolais seems to have met with some 

 success, but the more airy ideas of arranging the rainfall 

 in a country are not, I think, likely to be put into practice 

 in the present state of our knowledge, at all events. Various 

 experiments were made on and about May 19th, 1910, to 

 ascertain if the passage of the earth through the tail of 

 Halley's Comet was in any way shewn by changes in the 

 atmosphere, but nothing definite was observed, and in most 

 cases there was no departure from the usual state of things. 

 Some experiments made on Thorpe Downs, in Berkshire, and 

 elsewhere tend to show that dew-ponds are dependent for 

 their supply on rain only, and that no dew is deposited in 

 them. When staying in the Peak of Derbyshire, in the dry 

 hot summer of 1906, during August and September, I was 

 much struck by the fact that the grass remained brilliantly 

 green in all the district round, which rises to heights of about 

 400 to 1,500 feet above the sea level, whereas as soon as one 

 descended to the lower and less hilly adjacent parts, everything 

 was brown and burnt up. There must be some continued 

 supply of moisture to account for this and I do not think that 

 on that occasion rain was responsible, though in a general 

 way the Peak country gets a large share. Without having 

 made any accurate observations, my belief is that this was 

 caused by heavy dews, and I can only say that the dew-ponds 

 which abounded everywhere were rarely if ever dry in this 

 dry and hot period, though the cattle would naturally require 

 more water than usual. By taking photographs of aurorse 

 simultaneously from two different stations, the heights of 

 four have been calculated to be about 33, 74, 100, and 118 

 miles respectively. 



ELECTRICITY. 



The improvements in wireless telegraphy have been so 

 great in the last few years that it has been considered desirable 



