TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B.—PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 4.69 
Secrion B.—CHEMISTRY. 
PRESIDENT OF THE SecTION—Professor ARTHUR SMITHELLS, B.Sc., F.R.S. 
THURSDAY, AUGUST 1. 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
THE year which has elapsed since the meeting of our Section at York has been 
eventful in the most melancholy cf ways; the losses sustained by our science 
have been unparalleled. The passing bell seems to have tolled almost without 
intermission as one after another of our masters has been taken from us: in 
Russia, Mendeléef, Menschutkin, and Beilstein; in France, Berthelot and 
Moissan; in Holland, Bakhuis-Roozeboom. Whilst in some of these cases we 
may find consolation in contemplating a length of life and sustained activity 
beyond what we might have dared to expect, in others our regret is increased by 
the sense of untimeliness and of vanished hopes. I am tempted to speak of the 
work of such mighty men as Berthelot and Mendeléef, to dwell upon the dis- 
coveries by which they transformed the whole fabric of chemical science; but 
this is not the occasion on which to offer an estimate of the labours of those who 
have passed away. I can only say that in the bond of brotherhood which the 
pursuit of science establishes among the different nations of the earth we who are 
Englishmen feel and deplore these losses as our own. 
I must not omit to allude also, as I do with deep regret, to the death in our 
own country of two such ardent and fruitful workers as Cornelius O’SuJlivan and 
Robert Warington. 
These words were already in print when again we were called to muurn the loss 
of one of our greatest men, one who but a year ago was the subject of our special 
rejoicings, and whose vigour of body and youthfulness of spirit seemed to promise 
the long continuance of a noble and an extraordinarily fruitful life. We can at 
least feel thankful that William Henry Perkin lived long enough to learn in what 
honour and esteem his name was held, not only among his countrymen, but by all 
the chemists of the world, and by the leaders of those great industries of which he 
was justly acclaimed the founder. For more than a generation Sir William 
Perkin had been one of the most familiar figures at the meetings of this Section, 
and greatly shall we miss his gentle presence, his wise counsel, and his valued 
contributions. 
I can, perhaps, best occupy your time to-day by attempting to give some 
account of the present state of the scientific subject to which I have paid most 
attention. The topic of flame, after a long period of repose, has aroused much 
interest dur.ng late years, and I think we may say that some considerable progress 
has been made in its elucidation, although in this, as in all other subjects of 
scientific inquiry, the more closely we scrutinise it the more impressed must we be 
with what still remains unknown. 
One of the first questions that meet us in the study of flame is that of the 
temperature at which in any given case the phenomenon becomes evident. Here, 
