.THO TRANSACTIONS OP SRCTTON B. 



Section B.— CHEMISTRY. 



Pbesident op THE SECTION: Professoi" G. G. Henderson, 

 D.Sc, LL.D., F.R.S. 



WEDNESDAY, SEPT EM HE 11 G. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



For tTie third time in succession the Section meets under the shadow of the war 

 cloud, but there is some slight consolation for the indescribable suffering and 

 sorrow which have been imposed upon millions of our fellow creatures in the 

 hope and belief that this cloud also may have a silver lining. It is perhaps no 

 exaggeration to say that nothing less than such an upheaval of existing habits 

 and traditions as has been caused by the war would have sufficed to arouse the 

 British nation from the state of apathy towards science with which it has been 

 fatuously contented in the past. Now, however, the sleeper has at lea.st stirred 

 ifi his slumber. The Press bears witness, through the appearance of innumer- 

 able articles and letters, that the people of this country, and even the politician.^, 

 iiave begun to perceive the dangers which will inevitably result from a con- 

 tinuance of their former attitude, and to understand that in peace, as in war, 

 civilisation is at a tremendous disadvantage in the struggle for existence unless 

 armed by science, and that the future prosperity of the Empire is ultimately 

 dependent upon the ]n'Ogress of science, and very specially of chemi.stry. If, 

 as one result of the war, our people are led to appreciate the value of scientific 

 work, then perhaps we shall not have' paid too high a price, high although the 

 price must be. As concerns our own branch of science, we cannot rest satisfied 

 with anything less than full recognition of the fact that chemistry is a pro- 

 fession of fundamental importance, and that the chemist is entitled to a position 

 in no respect inferior to that of a member of any of the other learned pro- 

 fessions. 



Reference to the Annual Reports of the Association shows that former 

 Presidents of the Section have availed themselves to the full of the latitude 

 permitted in the choice of a subject for their Address, and that some have even 

 established the precedent of dispensing with an Address altogether. On the 

 present occasion a topic for discussion seems to be clearly indicated by the 

 circiunstances in which we stand, because, since the outbreak of the war, 

 chemists have been giving more earnest consideration than before to the present 

 position and future prospects of the chemical industry of this country. It \\\\\, 

 therefore, not be inappropriate if I touch upon some aspects of this question, 

 even although unable to add much to what is, or ought to be, common know- 

 ledge. 



The period which has elapsed since the last meeting of the Section in New- 

 castle has witnessed truly remarkable progress in every branch of pure and 

 applied chemistry. For fully fifty years previous to that meeting the attention 

 of the great majority of chemists had been devoted to organic chemistry, but 

 since 1885 or thereabouts, whilst the study of the compounds of carbon has 

 been pursued with unflagging energy and snccess, it has no longer so largely 

 pionopolised the activities of investigators. Interest in the other elements, 

 which had been to some extent neglected on account of the fascinations of 

 carboui, has been revived with the happiest results, for not only has our know- 

 ledge of these elements been greatly extended, but their nmnber also has 

 been notably increased by the discovery of two groups of simple substances 

 possessed of new and remarkable properties — the inert gases of the argon family 

 and the radio-aotive elements. In addition, the bonds between mathematics 

 and phj'sics on the one hand and chemistry on the other have been drawn 



