ADDRESS 



OF 



ALEXANDER W. WILLIAMSON, Ph.D., F.R.S., 



PRESIDENT. 



Ladies and Gentlemen, — • 



Instead of rising to address you on this occasion I had hoped to sit quietly 

 amongst you, and to enjoy the intellectual treat of Listening to the words of 

 a man of whom England may well be proud — a man whose life has been 

 spent in reading the great book of nature, for the purpose of enriching his 

 fellow men Avith a knowledge of its truths — a man whose name is known 

 and honoured in every corner of this planet to which a knowledge of science 

 has penetrated — and, let me add, a man whose name will live in the grateful 

 memory of mankind as long as the records of such noble work are preserved. 



At the last Meeting of the Association I had the pleasure of proposing that 

 Dr. Joule be elected President for the Bradford Meeting, and our Council 

 succeeded in overcoming his reliLctance and in persuading him to accept that 

 office. 



Nobly would Joule have discharged the duties of President had his bodily 

 health been equal to the task ; but it became apparent after a while that he 

 could not rely upon sufficient strength to justify him in performing the duties 

 of the Chaii-, and, in obedience to the orders of his physician, he placed his 

 resignation in the hands of the Council about two months ago. When, under 

 these circumstances, the Council did me the great honour of asldng me to 

 accept their nomination to the Presidentship, I felt that their request ought 

 to have with me the weight of a command. 



For a good many years past Chemistry has been growing at a more and more 

 rapid rate, growing in the number and variety of facts which are added to its 

 domain, and not less remarkably in the clearness and consistency of the ideas 

 by which these facts are explained and systematized. The current literature 

 of chemical research extends each year to the dimensions of a small library ; 

 and mere brief abstracts of the original papers published annually by the 

 Chemical Society, partly aided by a grant from this Association, take up 

 the chief part of a very stout volume. I could not, if I would, give you 

 to-night even an outline of the chief newly discovered compounds and of the 

 various changes which they undergo, describing each of them by its own 

 name (often a very long one) and recording the specific properties which give 

 to each substance its highest scientific interest. But I am sure that you 



