Notes and Comments. 351 



ordinary amount of minute detail, usually badly read, and 

 certainly never grasped by more than one per cent, of the 

 audience. There is also the ' trumpeter,' who warms up a lot 

 of old scientific ' chestnuts ' — not always his own ! — in order to 

 bring his name before the public. There are some who whisper 

 to the MSS. in their hands, or turn their backs to the audience, 

 and apparently speak to their diagrams. For all practical 

 purposes they may as well have been deaf and dumb. There 

 are also others ! But year after year the nuisance seems to 

 increase, and the rushes for the smoke-room become more and 

 more frequent ! 



SECTION ' c' 

 There was a surprise in store for the Committee of this 

 Section : viz., a suggestion from headquarters that it should be 

 amalgamated with the Geographical Section. Probably this 

 was made in order to reduce the number of officials, which is 

 certainly reaching almost unwieldy proportions. However, 

 both the Sections were equally convinced that such an amal- 

 gamation would be undesirable, and would not further the 

 interests of the two branches of science. Occasionally, as was 

 the case at Sheffield, joint meetings might be held ; but to try 

 to bring all the geological and geographical papers together, 

 in one week, and under one set of officers, would not only be 

 impracticable, but disastrous. As one shrewd geologist pointed 

 out, it was not an uncommon thing for two people to get on 

 admirably together, and on the best possible terms with each 

 other ; but let them get married, and — ! Fortunately, the 

 geographers and geologists are still free ! 



THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 



There can be little doubt that, to a very large extent, the 

 Presidential Address acted as a wet blanket to the whole of the 

 subsequent proceedings of the Sheffield meeting. And we say 

 this with every respect to the venerable scientist, the Rev. 

 Canon Bonney, whose activity was such that few could realize 

 he was approaching four-score years. But we fear that, for 

 once, the President had overlooked the fact that the British 

 Association was for the Advancement of Science. The theme he 

 selected was most unfortunate ; the subject was dealt with in 

 anything but a masterly manner, the conclusions arrived at 

 were admittedly nil, whilst the address has unquestionably 

 been an attempt to put back the clock of geological progress 

 at least twenty years. 



1910 Oct. I. 



