218 SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY 



BRITISH ASSOCIATION IN CANADA, 1884 



After the wedding-tour the next long journey was the 

 visit to Canada and the States in 1884. When it was 

 proposed to hold the meeting of 1884 at Montreal the 

 Ramsays were much tempted by the idea. Not only 

 did they want to see our great over-seas dominion, but 

 also a brother of Mrs. Ramsay's, a great friend of 

 Ramsay's, who had been some time in the States, and 

 they wished to meet him and see something of his life. 



In the first place this occasion brought home to Ram- 

 say the great value of the meetings of the association, 

 not only in spreading an interest in the progress of 

 science, but in bringing together scientific men, old and 

 young, in circumstances where each had leisure to be 

 interested in each other's work and ideas. 



Like other young professors, he had visited the 

 laboratories of the older and larger universities in 

 vacation time, and found the heads either away or, if 

 at home, they had stayed to work and visitors were 

 rather a hindrance. Later, when the younger men came 

 to see him in this way it was a real trouble to Ramsay 

 when he had not really time to spare to give to them. 

 The meetings of the British Association he felt met 

 this difficulty. There the younger men could hear the 

 older men speak and make their acquaintance, and the 

 older ones could listen to the theories and fancies of 

 the younger, coming men, and give them kindly words 

 of criticism and encouragement. 



