34 president's address. 



great that, while I consider those in the ' ]and-ice ' hypothesis to be the 

 more serious, I cannot as yet declare the other one to be satisfactorily 

 established, and think we shall be wiser in working on in the hope of 

 clearing up some of the perplexities. I may add that, for these purposes, 

 regions like the northern coasts of Eussia and Siberia appear to me more 

 promising than those in closer proximity to the North or South Mag- 

 netic Poles. This may seem a ' lame and impotent conclusion ' to so long 

 a disquisition, but there are stages in the development of a scientific idea 

 when the best service we can do it is by attempting to separate facts from 

 fancies, by demanding that difficulties should be frankly faced instead 

 of being severely ignored, by insisting that the giving of a name cannot 

 convert the imaginary into the real, and by remembering that if hypo- 

 theses yet on their trial are treated as axioms, the result will often bring 

 disaster, like building a tower on a foundation of sand. To scrutinise, 

 rather than to advocate any hypothesis, has been my aim throughout 

 this address, and, if my efforts have been to some extent successful, I 

 trust to be forgiven, though I may have trespassed on your patience 

 and disappointed a legitimate expectation. 



