TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 



Section A.— MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

 President of the Section — Charles Vernon Boys, F.R.S. 



TEimSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. 

 The President delivered the following Address :^ 



The first duty of every occupant of this Chair is a sad one. Year by year the 

 record grows of those who have devoted their lives to the development of mathe- 

 matical and physical science, of those who have completed their work. The past 

 year has added many names to the record — more, it seems, than its fair sliare. 

 The names include some of the most brilliant and active of our race, of those to 

 whom this Association is deeply indebted, and also of our fellow workmen in other 

 countries whose loss is no lees to be deplored. 



Lord Salisbury's devotion to the empire, of which this is not the occasion to 

 speak, left him but little time for those scientific pursuits in which he took so keen an 

 interest. Once, however, as President of this Association, he showed our members 

 that, unlike the majority of our statesmen, science was not to hiin a phantom. His 

 Address at Oxford will remain in the memories of all who heard it. The eloquence, 

 the humour, the satire, the subtlety provided an intellectual treat of the rarest kind. 



Of Sir George Gabriel Stokes and his work it is not possible for me to speak. 

 Any attempt on my part to appreciate or gauge the value of the work of such a 

 giant would be an impertinence. This can only fitly be done by one of our leaders, 

 and Lord Kelvin has paid a fitting tribute in the pages of ' Nature.' I can only 

 record the fact that Stokes was for seven years Secretary, and twice President of 

 this Section, and in 1869 was President of the Association. 



Ur. Gladstone, for fifty-three years a member of this Association, was not only 

 an unfailing attendant at our meetings, but an active member whose steady stream 

 of original communications on subjects connecting physics and chemistry earned 

 for him the designation of Creator of Physical Chemistry. His investigations on 

 spectroscopy, refractivity and electrolytics are known to every student of physics. 

 His researches upon early metallurgical history, while of less importance to the 

 progress of science, are none the less interesting. An ardent apostle of education, 

 he was for twenty-one years a member of the London School Board, and three 

 years vice-chairman. Dr. Gladstone was the first President of the Physical Society. 

 He has been President of the Chemical Society, and at the last meeting of the 

 British Association at Southport— as also in 1872 — he was President of the Chemical 

 Section. So long ago, he said, in urging the importance of science as a factor in 

 education, that the so-called educated classes were not only ignorant of science, 

 but had not arrived at the knowledge of their own ignorance. 



It is not possible to pass on without paying a tribute, in which all who knew 

 Dr. Gladstone will share, to his character no less than to his genius. 



_ Sir William Roberts Austin was probably one of the most active members that 

 this Association has known. Not only had he for many years made the subject of 

 metala and alloys his own, but he worked for the Association in many ways. At 



