TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E, 709 



last February must be present to the memory of many of you. Large- sums of 

 money devoted in good faith to scientific purposes do not always bring about the 

 wisbed-for result ; but in this case there is no room for anxiety on that score. 

 Sir John Murray, with whom Mr. Fred Pullar had worked for several years, has 

 generously promised to direct the whole scheme, and to be responsible for carrying 

 it out. All the lakes of the British Islands will be sounded and mapped as a 

 preliminary to the complete limnological investigation which is proposed. The 

 nature of the deposits, the chemical composition of the water and its dissolved 

 gases, the rainfall of the drainage areas, the volumes of the inflowing and out- 

 flowing streams, the fluctuations in the level of the surface, the seasonal changes 

 of temperature, and the nature and distribution of aquatic plants and animals will 

 all receive attention. The geological history of the lakes may also be enquired 

 into with reference to such points as the growth of deltas, the erosion of the 

 margins, and, perhaps, the conditions of the old dead lakes that are now level 

 meadows. 



Five years at least will be required to make these observations and to in- 

 corporate them in memoirs, each of which will be a complete natural history 

 of the lakes of one river basin. The proposed work wants more than money, 

 direction and time. It requires the services of several young and enthusiastic 

 workers — preferably men who have completed their University course and are 

 anxious to devote some time to research. Sir John Murray and Mr. Pullar 

 wish to meet three or four capable young fellows, one preferably a chemist, 

 one a geologist, one a botanist, and one a zoologist. When found they will 

 be offered a salary sufficient to enable them to give their whole time to the 

 work, but not large enoujjh to induce anyone who has not the love of science at 

 heart to take it up. From my experience when working in somewhat similar con- 

 ditions at the Scottish Marine Station seventeen years a?o, I can promise thosa 

 who will have the good fortune to be selected plenty of hard work for which 

 they will get the fullest credit — and this they will appreciate more keenly when 

 they come to know the world better — and I can promise them also in their 

 association with Sir John Murray a course of scientific and intellectual training 

 such as even the universities do not afibrd. 



Other Desirable Surveys. 



The Geological Map requires to be supplemented by additional work on the 

 nature of the superficial soil as it affects agriculture, such as is expressed in 

 X}\ti Cartes agrojiomiquen oi¥v&v\ce, going more fully into the chemical nature of 

 the soil than is possible on the Drift Maps of the Survey which so usefully supple- 

 ment the maps of solid geology. Such experiments as have been made at the 

 College at Reading in collecting analyses of the soils in the neighbourhood might 

 very well be carried out at the agricultural colleges and other centres all over the 

 country. 



Of equal value, though, perhaps, more obviously so to the scientific than to 

 the ' practical' man, is the study of the natural vegetation of the country. In a 

 highly cultivated land like ours there are comparatively few places where the 

 native flora remains in possession, but the mapping of the main crops which have 

 supplanted it is nearly as useful. To become satisfactory from this point of view, 

 the statistics of the Board of Agriculture ought to be supplemented by surveys 

 made by trained botanists on the ground. A valuable beginning has been made 

 under the ever-fertile stimulus of Professor Patrick Geddes iu the two sheets of a 

 map of the plant-associations of Scotland compiled by the late Robert Smith, 

 whose premature death last year was a loss to science. It would be a splendid 

 thing if this map could be finished as a memorial to the brilliant young botanist in 

 the same way as the survey of the lakes is proposed as a memorial worthy of 

 Fred Pullar, and I am glad to learn that there is some probability of it being 

 carried on. 



Of all the other distributions which might be worked out cartographically 

 time fails ua to speak ; but reference must be made, however briefly, to a few. 



190L 3 A 



