December 3, 1891] 



NATURE 



"3 



of Scotland — its geological strata — upside down. There were 

 only two ways of meeting an invader or an innovator such as 

 this — with steel or with gold. They must confute him with the 

 pen or reward him with a medal. The Council had chosen the 

 better part of valour, and he was sure the Society did not 

 question their discretion. With regard to himself, there was one 

 remark that he must make. In some of the principal researches 

 in which he had been engaged he had worked with colleagues. 

 While, therefore, thanking the Society for the honour they [had 

 been pleased to confer upon him, he was, perhaps, not wrong in 

 thinking that Dr. Thorpe and Prof. Reinold, who had received 

 many marks of appreciation from the Royal, the Physical, and 

 the Chemical Societies, were receiving further, though less 

 direct, recognition from the Royal Society to-day. Apart from 

 all minor questions, the distinguishing characteristic of this 

 meeting was the bringing together of men who were working at 

 different branches of science. These gatherings, and those 

 which in the summer take place during the meetings of 

 the British Association, were, he thought, good for all of 

 them. They checked that scientific particularism which in 

 the cultivation of a subject of study ignored the culture of 

 the student. They reminded them that they were all co- 

 operating to one common end — the promotion of natural know- 

 ledge. The very speech that he was making bore testimony to 

 this fact, for were it otherwise the President would not have 

 called upon an Englishman to reply for our absent foreign 

 medallists, or a physicist to return thanks for honours bestowed 

 on experts in geology and chemistry. It was only because he 

 himself believed that there was between scientific men a simi- 

 larity of aim and object, and a community of ideas, "which under- 

 lay all superficial differences, that he ventured to undertake the 

 task of expressing the thanks in which, he was sure, one and all 

 of the medallists most heartily joined. 



Prof. Dyer proposed " The Visitors," associating with 

 the toast the name of the Greek Minister. He said : — 



The association appeared to him a peculiarly happy one. 

 The other day he came across a striking statement of Sir Henry 

 Maine's — "Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves 

 in this world which is not Greek in its origin." The former 

 influence they could in this Society give some account of. But 

 the latter he regarded with a certain scientific scepticism. Yet 

 he was not disposed to dispute its validity. We still commenced 

 our often arduous mathematical studies with Greek geometry, 

 and he could not gainsay those who thought that the influence 

 of the counsels of Plato, and of the precepts of Aristotle, was 

 unexhausted. In art Greece remained unsurpassed and unsur- 

 passable. Some might say that if scientific men had their way 

 they would extinguish Greek studies. This was far from the 

 truth. In this Society they rejoiced in those exact studies which 

 recreated the literature and life of the past. 



The Greek Minister, in replying, said : — 

 He had always been of opinion that those who were intrusted 

 with the duty of representing their respective Governments 

 in this country, need confine their watchfulness and activity 

 neither to political nor to social circles alone. They had before 

 them a wide and unrivalled field in which to study the benefits 

 accruing to a whole community — to the Government itself — from 

 the efforts of private individuals, when guided by public zeal 

 and devotion to science ; and he thought no more striking ex- 

 ample of such benefits could be instanced than the results of 

 the labours of this, the most ancient and most illustrious of 

 learned Societies. It might be said to have been born 

 with the first dawn of scientific research in England ; it 

 had remained its stronghold in times of political trouble 

 and change ; it numbered in its long muster roll all those 

 names which had bequeathed an undying fame to British 

 science; it had worked out and solved, for the benefit of the 

 State, scientific questions which were elsewhere delegated to 

 official departments alone ; its catalogue of scientific papers was 

 a monument of the world-wide grasp of its subjects. That the 

 achievements of this Society should have been continuous and 

 ever increasing in importance for close upon 250 years was cha- 

 racteristic of British public zeal and tenacity of purpose. But 

 what was especially instructive was the ardour with which 

 such work was prosecuted, not only by those whose pursuit was 

 science, but by those especially who, like the illustrious states- 

 man at the head of Her Majesty's Government, being independ- 



NO. II 53. VOL. 45I 



ent by fortune and already great by birth and political achieve- 

 ments, yet contributed powerfully to the advancement of science. 

 It was at symposia such as this that the philosophers of ancient 

 Greece laid down those great truths of science which had found 

 amongst this Society such ardent apostles and such illustrious 

 expounders. The guests on whose behalf he responded, and he 

 himself, expressed sincere acknowledgments for the honour they 

 had done them that night. 



The company then separated. 



NOTES. 



A MEETING of the honorary council of advice in connec- 

 tion with the Crystal Palace Electrical Exhibition, which is to 

 be opened on January i next, was held last week at the Man- 

 sion House. The Lord Mayor presided. Mr. Gardner, the 

 secretary of the Crystal Palace Company, read the report of the 

 directors, in which they referred to the Electrical Exhibition at 

 the Palace in 1881, and to the enormous strides which had since 

 been made in the industry. The Exhibition of 1881 was recog- 

 nized as the pioneer of electrical engineering in this country, 

 and it was confidently believed that the Exhibition of 1892 

 would be remembered in history "as showing that the infant 

 Electra has grown to years of maturity, and is capable of further 

 aiding science, commerce, and the world at large." The space 

 available had been over-applied for, and every section of the 

 industry would be well represented. Invitations would be 

 issued to public bodies throughout the United Kingdom to visit 

 the Exhibition, where the various systems of electric lighting 

 would be on view, and in this direction alone very great saving 

 of expense to the authorities would be effected, and other 

 advantages must, the directors believed, also accrue. On the 

 motion of Mr. W. H. Preece, the following gentlemen were 

 appointed to act as a committee of experts in connection with 

 the exhibits : Profs. W. Grylls Adams, W. E. Ayrton, W. 

 Crookes, D. E. Hughes, A. B. W. Kennedy, J. Perry, and 

 Silvanus Thompson, Major P. Cardew, Sir J. N. Douglass,. 

 Mr. W. B. Esson, Mr. Gisbert Kapp, and Mr. Preece. 



On Friday last a portrait of Sir William Thomson, by Mr. 

 Herkomer, was presented to the University of Glasgow. A 

 number of friends subscribed for it, to signalize Sir William's 

 election to the office of President of the Royal Society. The 

 presentation was made by Mr. Balfour, the Lord Rector of the 

 University, who spoke eloquently of Sir William Thomson's 

 great career as a man of science and an inventor. A replica of 

 the portrait was presented to Lady Thomson. 



The Egyptian Government has asked the Caisse de la Dette 

 for ;^5c,ooo from the general reserve fund on behalf of the 

 Antiquities Department. The Cairo correspondent of the Times 

 says that before granting so large a sum the Caisse will probably 

 require the appointment of a Commission to study the purposes 

 for which it is to be used. It is hoped that searching investi- 

 gation will be made into the management of the department 

 generally. 



It is expected that Australia will be well represented at the 

 Chicago Exposition. Exhibits connected with education, 

 minerals, forestry, and especially wool are to be sent. About 

 fifty wool growers and wool brokers met lately at Sydney, and 

 decided to despatch a very extensive collective exhibit of 

 wools. 



We have to note a change in the form of the publications 

 ssued by the Meteorological Department of India. From 

 January i last, the Annual Reports on the Meteorology of India, 

 which have hitherto been issued about fourteen months after the 

 termination of the year to which they referred, have been re- 

 placed by a Monthly Weather Review, the first four parts 



