PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 15 



to set for the forthcoming competition for the Cecil Medal a 

 subject connected with that branch of science. Messages 

 have during the past year eclipsed all records in distance, one 

 having been received from Clifden, Galway, on board a ship, 

 with the help of a kite, at a distance of 3,500 miles, the greatest 

 previous distance on a ship being 1,750, and another received 

 at a land station, Buenos Aires, also from Clifden, a distance 

 of 6,000 miles. A service of time signals sent twice daily 

 from the Eiffel Tower has lately been instituted for the 

 benefit of ships, which are thereby enabled to adjust their 

 chronometers to the correct time. A new telephone relay 

 has been invented which much magnifies the sounds carried 

 and enables sounds, otherwise imperceptible, to be heard 

 distinctly. This is also useful in wireless communication. 



CHEMISTRY. 



/ 



The British Association section appears to have employed 

 itself much in discussing the nature of different irons and 

 steels, a subject too technical for me to say much about here. 

 The radium standards in different countries and laboratories 

 being somewhat variable and making comparisons difficult, 

 it has been decided to prepare a standard unit, to be kept in 

 Paris, which will enable workers to compare their results 

 more accurately. Pure radium has been isolated in the form 

 of a brilliant white substance, which blackens when exposed 

 to the air, burns paper, adheres to iron, and rapidly decom- 

 poses water. This has not before been separated from its 

 salts, which are often loosely termed radium. To shew the 

 immense value of these, it may be mentioned that a single 

 grain has been presented to the Radium Institute in London 

 at a cost of 15,000 by Sir Ernest Cassel. The difficulties 

 of experimenting with radium are greatly increased by the 

 minuteness of the quantities available, and their extreme 

 value. At the Japanese exhibition in London, amongst many 



