472 
NATURE 
| Sept. 17, 1885 
with authority, but in the hope that I may be the ‘‘ fool,” and 
that the ‘‘angels” who are well able to discuss them will be 
led to do so without delay: for chemists are anxiously awaiting 
guidance on matters such as I have referred to. 
Attention must, however, be directed to the study of electrical 
phenomena by the recent publications of Arrhenius and of 
Ostwald (fournal fiir praktische Chemie,” 1884, 30, 93, 225 ; 
1885, 31, 219, 433), and especially by the statement put forward 
by the latter that the rate of change under the influence of acids 
(in hydrolytic changes) is strictly proportional to the electrical 
conductivities of the acids. There cannot be a doubt that these 
investigations are of the very highest importance. 
I trust that in the discussions which we are to have on 
molecular weights of liquids and solids, and on electrolysis, 
there may be a free exchange of opinion on some of the points 
here raised. My reason for selecting these subjects for discus- 
sion in this Section will have been made sufficiently clear, I 
imagine. Last year in the Physical Section the idea assumed 
shape which had long been latent in the minds of many members 
of the Association, that it is unadvisable, as a rule, to encourage 
the reading of abstract papers, which rarely are, or can be, 
discussed. Two important discussions were ¢xtroduced by 
Profs. Lodge and Schuster. We must all cordially agree with 
Prof. Lodge’s remarks on the importance of discussing subjects 
of general interest at these meetings. It appears to me, how- 
ever, that even a more important work may often be accom- 
plished if the discussion consist of a series of papers which 
together forin a monograph of the subject. I have endeavoured 
to carry this idea into practice on the present occasion, and a 
number of friends have most kindly consented to assist. Un- 
expected difficulties have arisen, and probably we shall none o 
us succeed in doing all we might wish. I trust, however, that 
the Section will approve of this first attempt sufficiently to 
justify my successors in this chair in adopting a similar course. 
I much regret that it is impossible for me to attempt any re- 
view of recent work in chemistry. Not a few really important 
discoveries might be chronicled, and the patient industry of many 
who have toiled long to win results apparently insignificant 
should have been mentioned with high approval. A few remarks 
I will crave permission for, as regarding the general character of 
the work being done by chemists, and regarding that which has 
to be done. 
Complaints are not unfrequently made in this country that a 
large proportion of the published work is of little value, and 
that chemists are devoting themselves too exclusively to the 
study of carbon compounds, and especially of synthetical che- 
mistry. We are told that investigation is running too much in 
a few grooves, and it is said that we are gross worshippers of 
formule. Most of these outbursts are attributable to that par- 
donable selfishness which consists in assigning a higher value to 
the particular class of work with which one happens to be en- 
gaged or interested in than to any other line of investigation ; 
too frequently they result from want of sympathy with, if not 
absolute ignorance of, the scope and character of the work com- 
plained of. It must not be forgotten that chemical investigation, 
like other investigation, is to a large extent the work of genius ; 
the rank and file must necessarily follow in the order of their 
abilities and opportunities ; hence it is that we work in grooves. 
The attention paid to the study of carbon compounds may be 
more than justified both by reference to the results obtained and 
to the nature of the work before us: the inorganic kingdom 
refuses any longer to yield up her secrets—new elements—except 
after severe compulsion ; the organic kingdom, both animal and 
vegetable, stands ever ready before us; little wonder, then, if 
problems directly bearing upon life prove the more attractive to 
the living. The physiologist complains that probably 95 per 
cent. of the solid matters of living structures are pure unknowns 
to us, and that the fundamental chemical changes which occur 
during life are entirely enshrouded in mystery. It is in order 
that this may no longer be the case that the study of carbon 
compounds is being so vigorously prosecuted: our weapons— 
the knowledge of synthetical processes and of ehemical function 
—are now rapidly being sharpened, but we are yet far from 
ready for the attack. As to the value of this work, I believe 
that every fact honestly recorded is of value ; an infinite number 
of examples might be quoted to prove this. No unprejudiced 
reader can but be struck also with the improvement in quality 
which is manifest in the majority of the investigations now pub- 
lished ; at no time was more attention given to the discovery of 
ull the products of the reactions studied, and to the determination 
of the influence of changes in the conditions. As regards 
our formulze, those who look upon the outward visible form 
without proper knowledge of the facts symbolised, and who take 
no pains to appreciate the spirit in which they are conceived, are 
undoubtedly misled by them, The great outcome of the labours 
of carbon-chemists has been, however, the establishment of the 
doctrine of structure;1 that doctrine has received the most 
powerful support from the investigation of physical properties, 
and it may almost, without exaggeration, be said to have been 
rendered visible in Abney and Festing’s infra-red spectrum photo- 
graphs. Some of us look forward to the extension of the 
doctrine of structure not only to compounds generally, but even 
to the ‘‘elements.” The relationships between these are in so 
many cases so exactly similar to those which obtain between 
carbon compounds, which we are persuaded differ merely in 
structure, that it is almost impossible to avoid such a conclusion, 
even in the absence of all laboratory evidence.” 
As the field of view opens out before us, so does the vastness 
of the work to be accomplished become more and more 
apparent ; and Faraday’s words of 1834 may be quoted as even 
more appropriate than half a century ago. 
“Indeed, it is the great beauty of our science, Chemistry, that 
advancement in it, whether in a degree great or small, instead 
of exhausting the subjects of research, opens the door to further 
and more abundant knowledge, overflowing with beauty and 
utility, to those who will be at the easy personal pains of under- 
taking its experimental investigation. 
SECTION C 
GEOLOGY 
OPENING ADDRESS BY PROF. J. W. Jupp, F.R.S., Sec. G.S., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION 3 
CONCERNING the overlying formation of quartzites and lime- 
stones, much yet remains to be made out. Nicol, Lapworth, 
and the officers of the Geological Survey, have shown it to be 
made up of three principal members—the identity of which can- 
not be mistaken although different names have been assigned to 
them. While Nicol estimated the total thickness of this forma- 
tion at from 300 to 800 feet, however, and Lapworth places it at 
the smaller of these amounts, the officers of the Survey believe 
it to be no less than 2,000 feet thick. 
Eyen greater uncertainty still exists as to the exact geological 
age of this important formation. Murchison, who in his later 
years made ‘ Silurian” a mere synonym for Lower Palzeozoic, 
was no doubt right in regarding these rocks as being of that age. 
I have no intention of attempting to flog that dead horse—the 
controversy concerning the names which should be applied to 
the great systems containing the three faunas which Barrande so 
well showed to be present in the Lower Palzeozoic rocks. That 
controversy, commencing, it must be confessed, with some tragic 
elements, has long since passed into the sphere of comedy, and 
now bids fair, if still persisted in, to degenerate into farce. 
Little, if anything, has been added to the work of Salter in con- 
nection with these fossils of the Durness limestone. With their 
abundance of that remarkable and aberrant mollusc, Aaclurea, 
they can be paralleled with no other British or even European 
deposit, unless it be the Stinchar limestone of the Girvan district. 
Salter thought that this remarkable Scotch formation had its 
nearest analogues in the Calciferous sandstone and the Chazy 
limestone of North America. As those rocks contain *‘ Primord- 
ial” forms of ;Trilobites, they must probably be regarded as 
either of Cambrian age, or as constituting a link between the 
rocks containing Barrande’s first and second faunas respectively. 
Under these circumstances, it is a piece of welcome intelligence 
that the officers of the Geological Survey have succeeded in ob- 
taining a rich and varied collection of organic remains from the 
beds of Sutherland ; and the results of the examination and dis- 
cussion of these fossils will be awaited by all geologists with the 
greatest interest. 
Whether, as in the case of Scandinavia, other fossiliferous 
* I venture here to direct attention to an extension of the acknowledged 
theory of structure suggested (by myself, I may say) at the close of the discus- 
sion of the van ’t Hoff-Le Bel hypothesis of isomerism in Miller's “ Chemistry,” 
vol. iii., 1880 edition, p. 993. The same view was soon afterwards inde- 
pendently put forward by Dr. Perkin 
* F. Exner, in a recent paper (Wonatshe/te fiir Chemie, 1885, p. 249), ‘On 
a New Method of Determining the Size of Molecules,” actually puts forward 
an hypothesis as to the structure of elements. 
3 Continued from p. 458. 
