16 PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



storms in the course of the next few days. A large group 

 of sunspots existed, but the connnection between them and 

 the storms, though suspected, is not certain. 



CHEMISTRY. 



The year 1915 being the centenary of Davy's invention of 

 the miner's safety lamp, the President of the Chemical Section 

 of the British Association read an address on " The Ignition 

 phenomena of Gaseous Combustion." The war has brought 

 to our minds the great importance of being self-supporting 

 in the way of chemistry and not trusting to obtaining many 

 of the chemical products we require from Germany or else- 

 where, and great steps have been made in this direction, some 

 with a view to the provision of necessary munitions for the 

 war, and others for trade purposes, both during it and after 

 peace has been concluded. The salary and general status 

 offered to a chemist by many manufacturing firms is so 

 inferior that it cannot be expected that any good man would 

 accept such a post. This state of things it is hoped to remedy. 

 I think that the first desirable step would be to find a new 

 name for a scientific chemist, to distinguish him from a 

 tradesman whose accomplishments are limited to selling 

 drugs and making up prescriptions, as this is usually the 

 meaning of the word in the popular mind. A committee has 

 been appointed for the important purpose of standardising 

 chemical products with regard to their purity, and to 

 endeavour to obtain that reliability in respect to those of 

 English manufacture which is necessary for their success. 

 The Bureau of Standards at Washington has lately issued a 

 useful table of melting points of metals and other standard 

 temperatures, and it has also been shewn that in all the 

 solids which have been experimented upon, the melting 

 point rises regularly under pressure up to 12,000 kilogrammes 

 per square centimetre, the greatest pressure employed, 

 without shewing any maximum or critical points. The war, 



