president's address. 33 



and also where it occurs — again in full detail — and in what abundance 

 under different circumstances, but also how it lives and what all its 

 relations are to both its physical and its biological environment, and that 

 is where the physiologist, and especially the bio-chemist, can help us. 

 In the best interests of biological progress the day of the naturahst 

 who merely collects, tlie day of the anatomist and histologist who 

 merely describe, is over, and the future is with the obsei'ver and the 

 experimenter animated by a divine curiosity to enter into the life 

 of the organism and understand how it lives and moves and has its 

 being. ' Happy indeed is he who has been able to discover the causes 

 of things. ' 



Cardiff is a sea-port, and a great sea-port, and the Bristol Channel 

 is a notable sea-fisheries centre of growing importance. The explorers 

 and merchant venturers of the South- West of England are celebrated in 

 history. What are you doing now in Cai'diff to advance our knowledge 

 of the ocean? You have here an important university centre and a 

 great modern national museum, and either or both of these homes of 

 research might do well to establish an oceanographical department, 

 which would be an added glory to your city and of practical utility to 

 the country. This is the obvious centre in Wales for a sea-fisheries 

 institute for both research and education. Many important local move- 

 ments have arisen from Bi-itish Association meetings, and if such a 

 notable scientific development were to result from the Cardiff meeting 

 of 1920, all who value the advance of knowledge and the application of 

 science to industry would applaud your enlightened action. 



But in a wider sense, it is not to the people of Cardiff alone that 1 

 appeal, but to the whole population of these Islands, a maritime people 

 who owe everything to the sea. I urge them to become better informed 

 in regard to our national sea-fisheries and take a more enlightened 

 interest in the basal principles that underlie a rational regulation and 

 exploitation of these important industries. National efficiency depends 

 to a very great extent upon the degree in which scientific results and 

 methods are appreciated by the people and scientific investigation is 

 promoted by the Government and other administrative authorities. 

 The principles and discoveries of science apply to aquiculture no less 

 than to agriculture. To increase the hai-vest of the sea the fisheries 

 must be continuously investigated, and such cultivation as is possible 

 must be applied, and all this is clearly a natural application of tlie 

 biological and hydrogi'aphical work now united under the science of 

 Oceanography. 



1920 



