TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 



Section A.— MATHEMATICAL AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 

 President of the Section. — W. N. Shaw, ScD., LL.D., F.R.S. 



THURSDA Y, SEPTEMBER 2. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



It is with much misgiving that I endeavour to discharge the traditional duty of 

 the President of a Section of the British Association. So many other duties seem 

 to find a natural resting-place with anyone who has to reckon at the same time 

 with the immediate requirements of the public, the claims of scientific opinion, 

 and the interests of posterity, that, unless you are content with such contribution 

 towards the advancement of the sciences of mathematics and physics as my daily 

 experience enables me to offer you, I shall find the task impossible. 



With a leaning towards periodicity perhaps slightly unorthodox I have looked 

 back to see what they were doing in Section A fifty years ago. Kichard Owen 

 was President of the Association, William Whewell was President of Section A 

 for the fifth time. 



At the meeting of 1858 they must have spent some time over nineteen very 

 substantial reports on researches iu science, which included a large section of 

 Mallett's facts and theory of earthquake phenomena, magnetic surveys of Great 

 Britain and of Ireland, and, oddly enough, an account of the self-recording anemo- 

 meter by Beckley ; perhaps a longer time was required for fifty-seven papers 

 contributed to the Section, but very little was spent over the Presidential Address, 

 for it only occupies two pages of print. My inclination towards periodicities and 

 another consideration leads me to regard the precedent as a good one. That other 

 consideration is that Section A has always more subjects for discussion than it can 

 properly dispose of; and, in this case, discipline, like charity, might begin at home. 



Since the Section met last year it has lost its most illustrious member and its 

 most faithful friend. Lord Kelvin made his first contribution to Section A at 

 Cambridge in 1845, on the elementary laws of statical electricity ; he was Pre- 

 sident of the Section in 1852 at Belfast for the first of five times. I have looked 

 to see what suggestion I could derive from his first essay in that capacity. I can 

 find no reference to any Address in the published volume. I wish I had the 

 courage to follow that gi'eat example. 



Lord Kelvin's association with Section A was so constant and so intimate that 

 it requires more than a passing word of reference. "J'here is probably no student 

 of Mathematics or Physics grown into a position of responsibility iu this country 

 but keeps among his treasured reminiscences some words of inspiration and of 

 encouragement from Kelvin, spoken in the surroundings which we are once more 

 met to inaugurate. I refer to those unrecorded acts of k-indness and help because 

 they were i-eally a striking characteristic of Section A. Their value for tht^ 

 amenity as well as for the advancement of .science it would be difficult to over- 

 ie.«timate. I could not, even if time permitted, hope to set before you an adequate 



p p2 



