118 ANNUAL MEETINGS 



of the mathematical and physical section ; Williamson 

 of the chemical ,; A. C. Ramsay of the geological ; 

 Owen (president of the Association as far back as 

 1858) of the zoological ; Armstrong of the mechanical. 

 The geographical section might have proved difficult 

 to supply with such a leader, but that Hooker was 

 amply qualified and willing to act. It is incidentally 

 recorded that at an evening assembly in the art gallery 

 a novelty was introduced in the use of electric incan- 

 descent lamps. May the centenary meeting in 1931 

 prove no less brilliant ! John Perry, the General 

 Treasurer whose loss the Association mourned in 

 1920, was wont to picture this as the first meeting 

 to be held in London. 



With other individual meetings at home we need 

 not deal specifically ; but the meetings overseas call 

 for consideration in detail. 



OVERSEAS MEETINGS : MONTREAL, 1884 



A proposal that the Association should hold a 

 meeting outside the British Isles is first encountered 

 when Captain Bedford Pirn gave notice to the General 

 Committee in 1881 that he would move for a meeting 

 in Montreal. He ascertained, through Bishop J. T. 

 Lewis of Ontario, that the project would receive the 

 cordial and practical support of the Dominion Govern- 

 ment. Correspondence which took place between 

 the Marquess of Lome as Governor-General of Canada 

 and William Spottiswoode, who had been president 

 of the Association in 1878, with reference to the 

 possibility of a meeting at Montreal, was reported 

 to the Council in 1882. In that year the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science (founded 



