l xv i PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



owing to the proximity of the berg. Some observations on 

 the action of thunderstorms on seiches in a Japanese lake 

 tend to show that the rise in the water is produced by changes 

 in barometric pressure, by local rainfall raising the surface, 

 and by the impulsive action of the wind. These seiches or 

 local raisings of the surface occur in many large lakes, and 

 have been ascribed to various causes. The last meteorological 

 phenomenon to which I shall refer is a sunpillar seen at the 

 Stonyhurst observatory and elsewhere on February llth 

 last. A halo of 22 radius was capped by a bright " arc of 

 upper contact ;" and at 4.30, when the halo had become faint, 

 a sunpillar, which had before been visible, became very bright 

 and rose to the arc, which was also bright, forming, it would 

 seem from the description, a sort of cross of very striking 

 appearance, which calls to mind the cross with the moon in 

 the centre seen by Mrs. Richardson and myself on September 

 28th, 1904, and described and illustrated in our Proceedings 

 (Vol. XXVI., p. xxxiv.). 



ELECTRICITY. 



The standardisation of Electro technical symbols has 

 been for some time under consideration by the International 

 Electro technical Commission, and these symbols were finally 

 agreed upon at the meeting of the Commission in September, 

 1913, at which 24 nations were represented, and have now- 

 been published. This it is hoped will remove a difficulty 

 which has been much felt in regard to the intercourse amongst 

 different nations on the subject. A discovery which, though 

 it sounds obscure, may prove of the highest importance in 

 the investigation of the structure of the atom, is that when 

 hydrogen in a state of luminescence is placed in an electric 

 field of suitable strength and direction, the spectral lines 

 are resolved into 3 or more components. The desirability 

 of research work in wireless telegraphy has been put 

 for\\.ii(l strongly by a committee appointed by the 

 Postmaster General to consider the subject, and it is 



