August 4, 1892] 



NATURE 



323 



of plants and animals have meanwhile come and gone, and in 

 leaving their remains behind them as monuments at once of 

 the slow development of organic types, and of the prolonged 

 vicissitudes of the terrestrial surface, have furnished materials 

 for a chronological arrangement of the earth's topographical 

 features. Nor is it only from the organisms of former epochs 

 that broad generalizations may be drawn regarding revolutions 

 in geography. The living plants and animals of today have 

 been discovered to be eloquent of ancient geographical features 

 that have long since vanished. In their distribution they tell 

 us that climates have changed, that islands have been disjoined 

 from continents, that oceans once united have been divided 

 from each other, or once separate have now been joined ; that 

 some tracts of land have disappeared, while others for pro- 

 longed periods of lime have remained in isolation. The present 

 and the past are thus linked together not merely by dead mat- 

 ter, but by the world of living things, into one vast system of 

 continuous progression. 



In this marvellous increase of knowledge regarding the trans- 

 formations of the earth's surface, one of the most impressive 

 features, to my mind, is the power now given to us of perceiv- 

 ing the many striking contrasts between the present 

 and former aspects of topography and scenery. We seem 

 to be endowed with a new sense. What is seen by 

 the bodily eye — mountain, valley, or plain — serves but as a veil, 

 beyond which, as we raise it, visions of long-lost lands and seas 

 rise before us in a far-retreating vista. Pictures of the most 

 diverse and opposite character are beheld, as it were, through 

 each other, their lineaments subtly interwoven and even their 

 most vivid contrasts subdued idto one blended harmony. Like 

 the poet, " we see, but not by sight alone ;" and the "ray of 

 fancy " which, as a sunbeam, lightened up his landscape, is for 

 us broadened and brightened by that play of the imagination 

 which science can so vividly excite and prolong. 



Admirable illustrations of this modern interpretation of 

 scenery are supplied by the district wherein we are now as- 

 sembled. On every side of us rise the most convincing proofs 

 of the reality and potency of that ceaseless sculpture by which 

 the elements of landscape have been carved into their present 

 shapes. Turn where we may, our eyes rest on hills that project 

 above the lowland, not because they have been upheaved into 

 these positions, but because their stubborn materials have 

 enabled them better to withstand the degradation which has 

 worn down the softer strata into the plains around them. Inch 

 by inch the surface of the land has been lowered, and each hard 

 rock successively laid bare has communicated its own charac- 

 teristics of form and colour to the scenery. 



If, standing on the Castle Rock, the central and oldest site in 

 Edinburgh, we allow the bodily eye to wander over the fair 

 landscape, and the mental vision to range through the long 

 vista of earlier landscapes which science here reveals to us, 

 what a strange series of pictures passes before our gaze ! The 

 busy streets of to-day seem to fade away into the mingled copse- 

 wood and forest of prehistoric time. Lakes that have long 

 since vanished gleam through the woodlands, and a rude canoe 

 pushing from the shore startles the red deer that had come to 

 drink. While we look, the picture changes to a polar scene, 

 with bushes of stunted Arctic willow and birch, among which 

 herds of reindeer browse and the huge mammoth makes his 

 home. Thick sheets of snow are draped all over the hills 

 around, and far to the north-west the distant gleam of glaciers 

 and snow-fields marks the line of the Highland fountains. As 

 we muse on this strange contrast to the living world of to-day 

 the scene appears to grow more Arctic in aspect, until every 

 hill is buried under one vast sheet of ice, 2,(XX) feet or more in 

 thickness, which fills up the whole midland valley of Scotland 

 and creeps slowly eastward into the basin of the North Sea, 

 Here the curtain drops upon our moving pageant, for in the 

 geological record of this part of the country an enormous gap 

 occurs before the coming of the Ice Age. 



When once more the spectacle resumes its movement the 

 scene is found to have utterly changed. The familiar hills and 

 valleys of the Lothians have disappeared. Dense jungles of a 

 strange vegetation — tall reeds, club-mosses, and tree-ferns — 

 spread over the steaming swamps that stretch for leagues in all 

 directions. Broad lagoons and open seas are dotted with little 

 volcanic cones which throw out their streams of lava and 

 showers of ashes. Beyond these, in dimmer outline and older 

 in dale, we descry a wide lake or inland sea, covering the 

 whole midland valley and marked with long lines of active 



NO. I 188, VOL. 46] 



volcanoes, some of them several thousand feet in height. And 

 still further and fainter over the same region, we may catch a 

 glimpse of that still earlier expanse of sea which in Silurian 

 times overspread most of Britain. But beyond this scene our 

 vision fails. We have reached the limit across which no geolo- 

 gical evidence exists to lead the imagination into the primeval 

 darkness beyond. 



Such in briefest outline is the succession of mental pictures 

 which modern science enables us to frame out of the landscapes 

 around Edinburgh. They may be taken as illustrations of what 

 may be drawn, and sometimes with even greater fulness and 

 vividness, from any district in these islands. But I cite them 

 especially because of their local interest in connection with the 

 present meeting of the Association, and because the rocks that 

 yield them gave inspiration to those great masters whose claims 

 on our recollection, not least for their explanation of the origin 

 of scenery, I have tried to recount this evening. But I am 

 further impelled to dwell on these scenes from an overmastering 

 personal feeling to which I trust I may be permitted to give ex- 

 pression. It was these green hills and grey crags that gave me 

 in boyhood the impulse that has furnished the work and joy of 

 my life. To them, amid changes of scene and surroundings, 

 my heart ever fondly turns, and here I desire gratefully to 

 acknowledge that it is to their influence that I am indebted for 

 any claim I may possess to stand in the proud position in which 

 your choice has placed me. 



SECTION A. 



mathematics and physics. 



Opening Address by Prof. Arthur Schuster, Ph.D., 



F.R.S., F.R.A.S., President of the Section. 



In opening the proceedings of our Annual Meeting the temp- 

 tation is great to look back on the year which has passed and to 

 select for special consideration such work published during its 

 course as may seem to be of the greatest importance. I fear, 

 however, that a year is too short a time to allow us to form a 

 fair estimate of the value of a scientific investigation. The 

 mushroom, which shoots up quickly, only to disappear again, 

 impresses us more than the slow-growing seedling which will 

 live to be a tree, and it is difficult to recognize the scientific 

 fungus in its early stage. But, although I do not feel 

 competent to give you a review of the progress made in our 

 subject during the last twelve months, there is one event 

 to which some allusion should be made. It has been 

 the sad duty of many of my predecessors to announce the 

 death of successful workers in the field of science, but 

 I believe I am unique in having the pleasure of recording the 

 birth of a scientific man. At the beginning of this year there 

 came into the world a being so brilliant that he could, without 

 preparation, take up the work of the most eminent man amongst 

 us. Believers in the transmigration of souls have speculated on 

 the fact that Galileo's death and Newton's birth fell within a 

 year of each other ; but no event has ever happened so striking 

 as that which took place on the 1st of January, when the mantle 

 of Sir William Thomson fell on the infant Lord Kelvin. Those 

 who have attended these meetings will feel with me that the 

 honour done to our foremost representative, an honour which 

 has been a source of pride and satisfaction to every student of 

 science, could not altogether remain unnoticed in the section 

 which owes him so much. 



We are chiefly concerned here with the increase of scientific 

 knowledge, and we derive pleasure in contrasting the minor 

 state of ignorance of our own time with that which prevailed a 

 hundred years ago. But when we contrast at the same time the 

 refined opportunities of a modern research laboratory with the 

 crude conditions under which the experimentalist had to work at 

 the beginning of the century, we may fairly ask ourselves 

 whether it is possible by means of any systematic course of study 

 or by means of any organisation to accelerate our progress into 

 the dark continent of science. A number of serious considera- 

 tions arise in connection with this subject, and though I am not 

 going to weary you by attempting an exhaustive discussion, f 

 should like to draw your attention to a few matters which seem 

 to me to be well worthy of the consideration of this Association. 

 Changes are constantly made and proposed in our existing insti- 

 tutions, or new ones are suggested which are to serve the purpose 

 of a more rapid accumulation of knowledge. I need only allude 

 to the alterations in the curriculum of the science schools 



