XXXU INAUGURAL GENEBAL MEETING. 



Guild in 1905. His Presidential Address to the British. Association at South- 

 port sixteen years ago, on ' The Influence of Brain Power on History,' attracted 

 wide attention, but it has taken the greatest war in history to awaken national 

 consciousness to its significance. 



I have now the pleasure of introducing to you my successor in this chair, 

 an eminent biologist who has directed his great talents with indefatigable 

 energy to the study of the life that exists in the vast spaces and depths of the 

 ocean, which covers nearly three-fourths of our globe. Few people give much 

 thought to the ocean beyond the fact that it carries onr ships and is the source 

 of most of the fish which we eat. But the work of investigating what goes on 

 within the ocean, a work in which Professor Herdman has taken so arduous 

 and prominent a part, has revealed a life within it, both vegetable and animal, 

 of great complexity and of enormous magnitude, but governed by laws chemical 

 and physical which are being gradually discovered. It is indeed difficult to 

 I'ealise, as Professor Herdman has stated, that in some seas a cubic mile of 

 water may contain as much as 30,000 tons of living organisms whose life history 

 depends on the light of the sun, thermal currents in the ocean, and seasonal 

 changes, and that those organisms form the staple food of the fishes which we 

 eat. The difficulties of these investigations must have been enormous, requir- 

 ing the resources of science, consummate skill, and indefatigable energy to 

 overcome them. Many years ago Professor Herdman created a fisheries labora- 

 tory in the University of Liverpool, created and brought into co-operation with 

 it a biological station at Port Erin, and arranged periodical ocean trips for 

 dredging and collecting marine organisms. A year ago he endowed a chair of 

 oceanogi'aphy at Liverpool, the first on this subject in the British Isles. He 

 also founded, two years earlier, the chair of geology in memory of his only 

 son George Herdman, one of those young men of brilliant promise killed in the 

 war. His enthusiasm and sj-mpathy have made him beloved by his pupils, as 

 indeed by zoologists in general, and his work has led to the throwing of much 

 additional light on the marine life of our globe. 



The President-Elect, Professor W. A. Herdman, C.B.E., D.Sc, 

 LL.D., F.E.S., then took the chair, and delivered the Presidential 

 Address, which is printed below (pp. 1-33). 



The following gi'acious reply was received from His Majesty the 

 King to the telegram quoted on p. xxxi: — 



I have received with much pleasure and satisfaction the message which you 

 have addressed to me on behalf of the members of the British Association, 

 and in thanking them for their loyal assurances to myself I feel greatly touched 

 at the kind references to my son, which are the more appreciated coming as 

 these do from the members of this distinguished Society assembled in the 

 Principality of Wales. I shall follow your deliberations with close interest, 

 and I gi-atefully recognise all that is being done for tlie advancement of 

 civilisation by the men of science. George E.I. 



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