July 30, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



141 



plied to this letter, and of these replies only 

 74 were favorable. 



At the Southampton meeting in 1S82, the 

 proposal was discussed at length, and ulti- 

 mately it was decided to accept the invitation 

 from Montreal. So strong, however, was the 

 feeling on the part of many members against 

 what they regarded as an undesirable and 

 dangerous innovation that a memorial was 

 drawn up and presented to the council, ques- 

 tioning the legality of the decision to meet 

 outside the British Isles and calling for a 

 special meeting of the general committee to 

 be summoned to reconsider the matter. This 

 request was not acted upon ; and at the South- 

 port meeting in 1883 the council was able to 

 show that all fears that the proposed Canadian 

 meeting would prove a fiasco, owing to the 

 failure of any considerable body of members 

 to attend, were groundless, since between four 

 and five hundred members had already signi- 

 fied their intention of taking part in the Mon- 

 treal meeting. As a matter of fact, as the 

 time for meeting drew near so much eagerness 

 was shown to take part in the visit of the asso- 

 ciation to Canada that the council had to take 

 steps to restrict the election of new members. 

 Many persons who failed to secure election in 

 England went out to Canada without vouchers 

 and presented themselves for enrolment in 

 Montreal; and altogether the total number of 

 visitors who crossed the Atlantic and regis- 

 tered their names on the lists of the associa- 

 tion in Montreal amounted to 910, while the 

 total attendance at the meeting was 1,Y77. 



Much of the success of the Montreal meet- 

 ing in attracting a large number of visitors 

 from the old country was no doubt due to the 

 exceptional nature of the privileges extended 

 to members of the association by the Canadian 

 authorities. The potential greatness of the 

 'Resources of the Canadian northwest was not 

 then realized as it is to-day; and the dominion 

 government and people were eager to attract 

 to their shores a representative gathering of 

 the most eminent scientific men in this country 

 who would not only give an impetus to the 

 educational development of Canada, but who 

 woTild spread on their return home a better 



knowledge of the greatness of the heritage 

 belonging to the empire in British North 

 America. The privileges extended to the vis- 

 itors in 1884 might, indeed, well make envious 

 their successors in 1909. They were given 

 free passes over all government railways, over 

 the Canadian Pacific Railway, and over the 

 Canadian Atlantic Railway, while after the 

 meeting a special party of one hundred and' 

 fifty members was carried free to the limit of 

 construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway,, 

 then open to Stephen, the summit level of the- 

 Rocky Mountains. The city of Toronto en- 

 tertained as its guests after the meeting a- 

 party of three hundred members. The trans- 

 atlantic steamship companies undertook tO' 

 transmit a limited number of free messages- 

 from members to their friends in England, 

 while the overland companies accepted social 

 telegrams for free transmission to all parts of 

 Canada and the United States. The dominion 

 parliament voted a grant of $20,000 as a con- 

 tribution towards the traveling expenses of the 

 visiting members, and an additional grant of 

 $5,000 was afterwards voted towards the gen- 

 eral expenses of the executive committee. The 

 city of Montreal voted $5,000 towards the ex- 

 penses of the visit, while the subscriptions of 

 private citizens for the same object amounted 

 to $4,820. Thanks to all this public and pri- 

 vate generosity, the Canadian committee was 

 able to transmit to the association a sum of 

 $14,000 for the purpose of reducing the cost 

 of members' passages to Canada. 



Alike on the social and scientific side the 

 meeting fully justified the faith of its pro- 

 moters. At the inaugural gathering Lord 

 Rayleigh assumed the presidency of the asso- 

 ciation, and dealt in his opening address with 

 recent progress in physical science. At this 

 distance of time, it is interesting to note that 

 though Lord Rayleigh was able to describe the 

 lighting of large passenger ships by electricity 

 as already " an assured success," he had also 

 to state that " at present we have no experi- 

 ence of a house-to-house system of illumina- 

 tion (by electric light) on a great scale and in 

 competition with cheap gas; but preparations 

 are already far advanced for trial on an ade- 



