August 3, 1893] 



NATURE 



529 



sented an address on behalf of the Society. They regarded the 

 Rothamsted experiments as the highest contribution that had 

 ever been made to the science of agriculture. 



Prof. E. Kinch presented an address from the Royal Agri- 

 cultural College, Cirencester. He alluded to the great educa- 

 tional value of the Rothamsted experiments, to the kind reception 

 of the students at their annual visit to the Station, and to the 

 debt of gratitude they owed to Dr. Gilbert for his services as 

 honorary professor at the College. 



Mr. Ernest Clarke, in the absence of M. Tisserand, then read 

 an address from the Societe National d'Agriculture de France. 

 Mr. Clarke mentioned that several other addresses were on 

 their way to this country. 



Sir John Lawes, who, on rising to reply, was received with 

 hearty cheering, said that it was only a very few months since 

 he and his wife received the congratulations of many friends on 

 having attained fifty years of married life, which was occasion- 

 ally called a golden wedding. That afternoon he had to return 

 thanks to that distinguished company for congratulating him- 

 self and Dr. Gilbert on the work they had carried on together 

 for fifty years. When two persons were joined together in 

 marriage they could not part — they were bound together by a 

 solemn tie. Dr. Gilbert and himself were bound by no ties. 

 During the whole of the fifty years Dr. Gilbert had been 

 perfectly at liberty to leave him, and he to leave Dr. Gilbert ; 

 they had remained together from their mutual love of the 

 work they had undertaken. He had given to this work all the 

 time that he could spare consistently with other duties ; but Dr. 

 Gilbert had given his whole time to it, and had it not been for 

 the labours of Dr. Gilbert, the affairs of Rothamsted would 

 have been in a different state to that in which they now were. Dr. 

 Gilbert had given his life to the experiments — had given the 

 most arduous part of his life — had given his holidays, and this 

 very year he was going to Chicago to deliver a course of lectures 

 on the work at Rothamsted. 



He had now had sixty years' experience of agriculture. When 

 he began farming in 1834 the country was suHering from agri- 

 cultural depression, the crops were so large that they more than 

 supplied the wants of the nation ; now our wheat crop only 

 sufficed for one-third of our consumption, and the rest had to be 

 furnished by other countries. He was afraid that their investi- 

 gations had been of more use to the foreigner than to the English 

 larmer, for the latter had always grown good crops, and thus 

 could not meet lower prices by an mcreased production, while 

 the foreigner had been able to do this. 



Sir John Lawes expressed his cordial thanks for the various 

 presentations made to him that day, and especially for the 

 granite boulder, which he playfully said would probably still be 

 in existence when the portrait had been transferred from the 

 drawing-room to the bedroom, and from the bedroom to the 

 garret, and people had forgotten whom it represented, and who 

 painted it. 



Dr. Gilbert expressed himself as unable to return thanks 

 adequately for the ovation of that day. Referring to the early 

 years of their investigations, he said that they commenced with 

 orthodox views ; but that, as they could not alter the laws of 

 nature, they presently found that they were at variance with 

 received opinion, and their scientific friends looked on them 

 with pity. Their first paper was subjected to merciless ex- 

 cision by the editor of the journal to which it was sent, and 

 they with difficulty secured its publication. Those who opposed 

 became, however, finally their firm friends, and they had since 

 published in that very journal papers occupying about 2,CCX3 

 pages. The reason they had been able to steer clear of error 

 in their numerous experimental inquiries at Rothamsted was 

 that they had adhered resolutely to the motto of the Royal 

 Agricultural Society, and had associated practice with science 

 throughout the whole course of their researches. Agriculture, 

 more perhaps than any other art or industry, was dependent 

 upon the intelligent application not of one but of many 

 branches of science, and hence it was that the experimental 

 agriculturist found himself in contact at one time with the 

 botanist, at another time with the physiologist, and again with 

 the chemist and the geologist, the statistician and the economist. 

 He mentioned that he had in preparation a jubilee edition of 

 the memorandum sheet on the Rothamsted experiments, and 

 [ concluded by expressing his warmest thanks for the sympathetic 

 I kindness which his friends had shown him that day. 

 i Sir Joseph Hooker, in proposing a vote of thanks to the 

 ! executive committee of the Jubilee Fund, said that he had never 



NO. 1240, VOL. 48] 



seen chemistry and botany united to such good purpose as in 

 the investigations of Lawes and Gilbert. 



Sir John Evans, treasurer of the fund, in responding, said 

 that the boulder of Shap granite which they saw before them 

 weighed nearly eight tons, and had twice broken down on its 

 way to Harpenden. He need hardly say that a considerable 

 weight had been taken off his mind when he at last had the 

 satisfaction of seeing the huge monolith firmly planted in the 

 place it now occupied. 



The Earl of Clarendon proposed a hearty vote of thanks to 

 the Chairman, which was carried by acclamation, and the formal 

 proceedings terminated. 



The portrait of Sir John Lawes, by Hubert Herkomer, R.A., 

 was afterwards on view in the laboratory. 



A garden party at Rothamsted was held later in the after- 

 noon, which was attended by most of the visitors. 



THE GEOLOGISTS' ASSOCIATION 

 IRELAND. 



IN 



'PHE visit of the Geologists' Association to the counties of 

 Dublin and Wicklow, under the direction of Profs. Sollas 

 and Cole, extended officially from July 24 to July 29 ; but a 

 number of members arrived in Dublin for Sunday, July 23, and 

 visited the cathedrals and places of historic interest in the city, 

 under the guidance of Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J. On Monday 

 the full party examined the grits and 01d/!amia-s\aXes of Bray 

 Head. The Rev. Dr. Haughton, F. R. S., delivered a speech of 

 welcome, standing on the rocks of the headland, and Prof. 

 O'Reilly and Prof. Sollas, F.R.S., explained the structure of the 

 mass, showing how the more resisting grits have caused a 

 wrinkled flow of the shales and slates between them. The 

 excursion was continued to the fine intrusive junction of the 

 Leinster granite and the Ordovician rocks at Killiney, the latter 

 being metamorphosed into mica-schists with abundant anda- 

 lusites and some garnets. 



On Tuesday, July 25, the promontory of Portrane was visited , 

 under the direction ot Prof. Grenville Cole. The basal carboni- 

 ferous conglomerates ("Old Red Sandstone ") were seen above 

 the Bala series, which is here finely fossiliferous. The igneous 

 rocks, ashes, agglomerates, and some lavas, associated with the 

 great volcano ot Lambay, are well seen upon this coast, and a 

 true conglomerate of volcanic blocks and of pebbles, worn from 

 the contemporaneous coral-reefs is one of the most interesting 

 exposures. The brecciation, under pressure, of the alternating 

 layers of shale and limestone produces, near the Priest's Cave, a 

 rock resembling a coarse conglomerate of limestone-pebbles in 

 a matrix of black clay. 



On Wednesday, Howth was visited ; Prof. Sollas conducted 

 the party, and Dr. V. Ball, Mr. G. H. Kinahan, and Mr. A. 

 B. Wynne were also present. The glacial drift on striated sur- 

 faces of Carboniferous Limestone, the dolomitisation of the lime- 

 stone, the Ordovician dykes of diabase in the quartzites, and the 

 quartzites, grits, and many-coloured shales, of the Howth and 

 Bray series, were studied along the southern shore. Casts of 

 worm-burrows were pointed out in some of the sandstones near 

 the Needles. 



On Thursday, July 27, an early start was made for Rathdrum, 

 and cars were taken to Glendalough and the Seven Churches. 

 Prof. Sollas and Prof. Cole led the party to the high ridge 

 above the upper lake to examine the amphibolite in the Ordo- 

 vician slates. Prof. Sollas showed how the slates had been 

 converted into schists by contact with the Leinster granite, and 

 how pressure has produced a foliated structure even in the in- 

 trusive mass ; but the amphibolite has converted the schists 

 locally into a "Desmosite," consisting of quartz, garnet, and 

 dark mica, the latter lying in planes across those of the first 

 foliation. 



On Friday the Rev. Maxwell Close acted as guide to the shell- 

 bearing sands and gravels, 1,000 feet up on the slope of Two- 

 rock Mountain, near the house called Ballyediriondduff. Small 

 fragments of marine shells were freely found in the upper pit. 

 The party then descended into Glencullen, where Prof. Cole 

 pointed out how the valley had been at one time choked with 

 "drift," full of striated blocks of limestone and dil-liris of granite 

 and Ordovician rocks, and how the river has now cut down into 

 j this mass, as is the case in so many valleys of the southern and 

 eastern Alps. From Enniskerry the geologists drove through 

 the Scalp, a bold notch in the granite ridge, with an exposure 

 of the junction with contorted Ordovician rocks. 



