44 FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



St. Andrew's Day. The health of the medallists of the 

 year 1907 was given from the chair by Lord Rayleigh, 

 and they replied one by one to the toast. Professor 

 Michelsen, of Chicago, received what is considered the 

 greatest honour the society has to bestow the Copley 

 Medal (founded more than two hundred years ago) for his 

 researches on light. He related in his speech how he had 

 tried to interest a wealthy business man in the experi- 

 ments going on in his laboratory, in the hope that his 

 friend might be moved to give pecuniary aid for the 

 provision of new apparatus. One by one, he showed 

 his delicate instruments and explained their uses; no 

 impression was produced. At last he explained how 

 the bright lines of the spectrum of flame, coloured by 

 incandescent elements (such as theatre-goers know as 

 red fire, green fire, blue fire, &c.), can be recognised by 

 means of the spectroscope in the light of the sun 

 proving the presence of the metals and other elements 

 of this earth in that remote body. He especially ex- 

 plained and showed his friend the experiments by which 

 sodium, the metal of which caustic soda is the " rust," 

 is thus proved to be present in the sun. At last his 



friend spoke. He said : " Who the cares if there 



is sodium in the sun ? " Professor Michelsen did not 

 tell the fellows of the Royal Society how he replied to 

 that abrupt inquiry. 



A more encouraging speech was that of Lord Fitz- 

 maurice, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign 

 Affairs, who replied to the toast of the guests. He 

 declared, in so many words, " It is every day becoming 

 more and more certain that science is the master." He 

 said that in his own business as a diplomatist he found 

 that the chief matters which he had to discuss and 

 decide depended on scientific knowledge and the in- 

 formation and guidance given to him and his colleagues 

 by scientific men. In the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century the British Government had sent a bishop and 



