CHAPTER VII 



LATER YEARS 



WHEN a man is approaching the age of sixty years he 

 is often supposed to be looking forward with some 

 eagerness to the time when he can retire from active 

 life. In Ramsay's case, however, there was little sign 

 of relaxation so far as the fulfilment of public engage- 

 ments was concerned nor in the active pursuit of scien- 

 tific research. Nevertheless, there were times when he 

 had to acknowledge privately that the pace could not 

 be kept up much longer. He had been within a few 

 years President of the Society of Chemical Industry 

 (1904), President of the Chemical Society (1908 and 

 1909), President of the International Congress of Applied 

 Chemistry (1909), President of the Chemical Section of 

 the British Association (1897), and President of the 

 Association itself (1911), and each year of office required 

 a presidential address. 



He had also been to India on official business (1900), 

 and with the Society of Chemical Industry to the St. 

 Louis Exhibition, with an address at the Congress of 



Arts and Science at St. Louis (1904), to Norway to visit 



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