PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. Ixv. 



operator has seen the body of a person right through, and a dark 

 streak along its length corresponding with the spinal cord, the 

 spine, the ribs on each side of the body, the sternum, clavicle 

 and the scapula. In another instance the shadow of a coin was 

 seen in the gullet of a patient. A coin coated with phosphorescent 

 sulphide of zinc will allow the rays to pass through it. In the 

 British Medical Journal of April a plate of the skeleton of an 

 infant three months old, reproduced from a photograph, 

 demonstrating the visceral region of the body by means of 

 the Rontgen rays, clearly indicated the heart and lungs ; the 

 ossified parts of the bones were definitely shadowed, but not 

 the undeveloped parts. 



NANSEN. 



Nansen's expedition to the North Pole in 1894, from which 

 he and his companions have just returned safe, was as bold an 

 enterprise as possibly can be imagined. He based his faith and 

 risked his life on the accuracy of his theory of ocean currents 

 in the North. His strongest evidence for the existence of a 

 drift across the centre of the Polar basin was the discovery of 

 relics on the ice off the South of Greenland from the American 

 exploring ship Jeannette, which sank off the New Siberian 

 Islands. From what has come to our knowledge of Nansen's 

 journey, the glimpses of the scientific results obtained by him 

 and his companions indicate conclusions of much importance. 

 The Fram succeeded in entering the current, was embedded in ice, 

 and drifted in the direction indicated. Its continuous drift for 

 three consecutive years was a triumph for meteorology and 

 oceanography. The ice was found in continuous drift, and not 

 covering the Polar Sea, as was supposed to be the case. The 

 greatest discovery is a wide deep sea attaining a depth of as much 

 as 2,000 fathoms towards the North Pole, having a relatively 

 warm temperature in its lowest depths. This sea was supposed 

 to be a shallow basin with ice-cold water in its depths, and always 

 covered with floating ice. The depths which were found north 

 of Franz Joseph Land and Spitzbergen, in connection with the 



