ASSOCIATIONS FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. (BRITISH.) 



35 



Great Britain of agricultural experiment stations 

 similar in character to those which are producing 

 such satisfactory results in Canada. The committee 

 reported the work that it had performed in se- 

 curing results that led to its decision. A committee 

 appointed to urge upon the Canadian Government 



SIR WILLIAM CUOOKES. 



the desirability of continuing its tidal survey 

 reported that the Canadian Government replied 

 that it was deemed advisable " to defer the prosecu- 

 tion of the survey for the present and to confine 

 the work to the maintenance and operations of the 

 tidal gauges already established and the preparation 

 of tide tables." The British Museum, in reply to a 

 resolution, advised the council that a bureau for 

 ethnology would be established " as soon as certain 

 rearrangements affecting space, etc., now in prog- 

 ress, shall have been finished." The treasurer 

 reported that the receipts for the past year were 

 4,023 18s. 2d., and that there was a balance of 

 1,703 3s. 8d. in the treasurer's hands. The invest- 

 ments now amount, according to his report, to 

 11,137. Various new members of the council 

 were chosen and the secretaries and assistant secre- 

 tary re-elected. Prof. Arthur W. Rucker, having 

 been appointed a trustee in succession to the late 

 Lord Lyon Playfair, Prof. G. Carey Foster was 

 elected general treasurer. The usual vote of 

 thanks, on motion of Prof. A. B. Macallum, of 

 Toronto, was adopted for the retiring president, Sir 

 John Evans. 



In the evening the association met in the People's 

 Palace for the purpose of listening to the inaugural 

 address of the president. The retiring president, 

 Sir John Evans, occupied the chair and introduced 

 the new incumbent as follows : He said that " he 

 need hardly introduce his successor in the chair, for 

 his name was known throughout the civilized 

 world. At an early age he attained great eminence 

 in chemistry, but he had not confined himself to 

 chemical research, for he had experimented largely 

 on various materials in vacuo, and the Crookes 

 tube was known throughout the world. These 

 experiments had led to more important results 

 than the radiometer. From them had risen the 

 Rontgen rays, the utility of which had lately been 

 demonstrated by the application in the case of the 

 Prince of Wales. They might look to Sir William 



Crookes as the real originator of those rays." It 

 may also be added that Sir William Crookes is 

 a past president of the London Chemical Society 

 and has for many years been the editor of the 

 "Chemical News " of London. 



Inaugural Address of the President. In 

 opening, Sir William Crookes said : " I propose first 

 to deal with the important question of the supply 

 of bread to the inhabitants of these islands, then 

 to touch on subjects to which my life work has 

 been more or less devoted. Many of my statements 

 you may think are of the alarmist order; certainly 

 they are depressing, but they are founded on stub- 

 born facts. They show that England and all 

 civilized nations stand in deadly peril of not having 

 enough to eat. As mouths multiply, food resources 

 dwindle. Our wheat-producing soil is totally un- 

 equal to the strain put upon it. After wearying 

 you with a survey of the universal dearth to be 

 expected, I hope to point a way out of the colossal 

 dilemma. It is the chemist who must come to the 

 rescue of the threatened communities. The con- 

 sumption of wheat per head of the population (unit 

 consumption) is over 6 bushels per annum ; and 

 taking the population at 40,000,000, we require 

 no less than 240,000,000 bushels of wheat, increas- 

 ing annually by 2,000,000 bushels, to supply the 

 increase of population. Of the total amount of 

 wheat consumed in the United Kingdom we grow 

 25 and import 75 per cent. Our stock of wheat 

 and flour amounts only to 64,000,000 bushels 

 fourteen weeks' supply while last April our stock 

 was equal to only 10,000,000 bushels, the smallest 

 ever recorded by ' Beerbohm ' for the period of 

 the season. Similarly, the stocks held in Europe, 

 the United States, and in Canada, called 'the 

 world's visible supply,' amounted to only 54,000,000 

 bushels, or 10,000,000 less than last year's sum 

 total, and nearly 82,000,000 less than that of 1893 

 or 1894 at the corresponding period. The burn- 

 ing question of to-day is, What can the United 

 Kingdom do to be reasonably safe from starvation 

 in presence of two successive failures of the world's 

 wheat harvest, or against a hostile combination 

 of European nations? We eagerly spend millions 

 to protect our coasts and commerce ; and millions 

 more on ships, explosives, guns, and men ; but 

 we omit to take necessary precautions to supply 

 ourselves with the very first and supremely impor- 

 tant munition of war food. The problem is not 

 restricted to the British Isles the bread eaters of 

 the whole world share the perilous prospect. In 

 1871 the bread eaters of the world numbered 

 371,000,000. and at the present time they number 

 516,500,000. To supply 516,500.000 bread eaters, if 

 each bread-eating unit is to have his usual ration, 

 will require a total of 2,324,000,000 bushels for seed 

 and food. What are our prospects of obtaining 

 this amount ? The total supplies from the 1897-'98 

 harvest are 1,921,000,000 bushels. The requirement 

 of the 516.500,000 bread eaters for seed and food 

 are 2,324,000,000 bushels: there is thus a deficit 

 of 403,000,000 bushels, which has not been urgently 

 apparent owing to a surplus of 300,000,000 bushels 

 carried over from the last harvest. We start with a 

 deficit of 103,000,000 bushels and have 6,500,000 

 more mouths to feed. It follows, therefore, that 

 one sixth of the required bread will be lacking 

 unless larger drafts than now seem possible can 

 be made upon early produce from the next har- 

 vest." Sir William Crookes then reviewed "the 

 capabilities as regards available area, economic 

 conditions, and acreage yield of the various wheat- 

 growing countries." Concerning the United States, 

 he said : " For the last thirty years the United 

 States have been the dominant factor in the foreign 

 supply of wheat, exporting no less than 145.000.000 



