Notes and Comments. 285 



ticket for an excursion, and then show it in order to g^et the 

 pamphlet for that excursion only. Thus the stranger had no 

 means of choosing the excursion that would repay him the best. 

 Most of the members therefore neither went on any of the excur- 

 sions nor got any of the hand-books. 



FUTURE MEETINGS. 

 The next meeting of the Association will be held at Leicester, 

 and, notwithstanding the experience gained by the early date 

 at York, July 31st has been selected for the date of the com- 

 mencement of the 1907 meeting. In 1908 the Association visits 

 Dublin, and in the following year an invitation from Winnipeg 

 has been accepted. 



THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



The York Meeting may be said to have commenced on Wed- 

 nesday evening, August ist, when the presidential address was 

 delivered by Professor E. Ray Lankester, M.A., LL.D., D.Sc, 

 F.R.S., F.L.S., Director of the Natural History Departments 

 of the British Museum. The first part of this address was 

 devoted to an admirable survey of the advances made in scientific 

 research during the preceding quarter of a century. At the 

 previous York Meeting, 25 years ago. Lord Avebury — then Sir 

 John Lubbock — reviewed the progress in science during the 

 previous fifty years. In the two addresses, therefore, we have 

 an useful resume of the scientific achievements of the last 

 three quarters of a century, during which the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science has been in existence. In the 

 second part of his address Professor Ray Lankester dealt with 

 "The Advancement of Science as Measured by the Support 

 given to it by Public Funds, and the Respect Accorded to 

 Scientific Work by the British Government and the Community 

 at large." 



In this he pointed out that whilst he had been able to 

 indicate the satisfactory and, indeed, the wonderful progress of 

 science since the Association last met in York, so far as the 

 making of new knowledge was concerned, he was sorry to say 

 that there was by no means a corresponding ' advancement ' of 

 science in that signification of the word which implies the 

 increase of the influence of science in the life of the community, 

 the increase of the support given to it, and of the desire to aid in 

 its progress, to discover and then to encourage and reward 



igo6 September i. 



