SECTION II 



COMMUNICATIONS TO THE PHILOSOPHICAL 

 CLUB 



As has been already said, the members present at the 

 dinners of the Philosophical Club were invited by the 

 Chairman to make communications to the Club on any 

 subject of special scientific interest, and the Treasurer was 

 instructed to record these in the Minutes. Thus the latter 

 range over a wide field, and commemorate many of the 

 most important advances that have been made in science 

 during the fifty four years of the Club's separate existence. 

 They include such subjects as the discovery of new chemical 

 elements, spectrum analysis, advances in electricity, botanical 

 and zoological exploration, deep-sea soundings, borings 

 in the Nile delta and in the Funafuti atoll, the eruption of 

 Krakatoa, the physics and history of glaciers, the nature 

 of Eozoon Canadense, and the recognition of palaeolithic 

 implements. The variety and disconnected character of 

 the subjects made a continuous narrative so extremely 

 difficult that I decided to place the abstracts of them in 

 chronological order and in separate paragraphs. Obviously 

 this method of treatment is the less attractive, but after 

 rather careful consideration and some trial I have found 

 it the most practicable one at any rate for myself. 



The study of these Minutes has impressed upon me more 



strongly than ever how marvellously great the progress 



in discovery has been during the above-named period, 



or, at any rate, during the last seventy years of the nineteenth 



p.c. G 97 



