SOUTH AFRICAN ASSOCIATION. 5 



to be mentioned the two astronomical Observatories at that time in 

 operation : the Royal Observatory at Cape Town, then already full of 

 years and of honour, and the Johannesburg Observatory which, thanks 

 largely to the representations made by this Association of ours, had been 

 established a few months before the 1905 meeting. In regard to Scientific 

 Societies there is but little to record. There were in existence in 1905 a 

 small South African Philosophical Society (now known as the Royal 

 Society of South Africa), the Geological Society of South Africa, the Cape 

 Society of Engineers, the Chemical Metallurgical and Mining Society, and 

 also this Association for the Advancement of Science, which had come 

 into existence a bare three years previously. It was, indeed, the day of 

 small things, and small also was the achievement which Science in South 

 Africa at that date had to its credit. If one leaves out of account the 

 work of Sir David Gill and the scientific endeavour which had been put 

 into the development of the gold mining industry of the Witwatersrand, 

 there is little indeed of permanent significance that remains. 



Against this picture it is appropriate to set the picture of South 

 African Science as it will unfold itself to our visitors to-day. They will 

 find three vigorous single-College teaching Universities, which have in 

 recent years made remarkable progress in the attainment of the standards 

 of similar institutions in older lands, and also a federal University with 

 six constituent Colleges, which, like the single-College Universities are, 

 in human and material equipment and in the output of the results of 

 scientific investigation, very far ahead of their predecessors of 1905. 

 Against the forty- nine workers of 1905 we can now set 467 — 144 professors 

 and 323 others — within the range at present covered by the activities of 

 this Association. The twenty-seven graduates of 1905 have increased to 314 

 in 1928. To the Scientific Societies of 1905 there have been added, since 

 the last visit of the British Association, the South African Institute of 

 Electrical Engineers, the South African Institution of Engineers, the 

 Cape Chemical Society, the South African Chemical Institute, the Botan- 

 ical Society of South Africa, the South African Biological Society, the 

 Astronomical Society of South Africa, the South African Geographical 

 Society, and the South African Economic Society, and this Association 

 of ours has become an active, vigorous, and powerful body, proud of the 

 achievements which it already has to its credit, challenging eagerly the 

 tasks that await it in the future. The two Observatories of 1905, our 

 visitors will find, have increased to six, including the Smithsonian Solar 

 Observatory in South- West Africa, and the equipment of these institutions 



