14 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
other plant is being installed to manufacture nitric acid by the 
direct combination of the nitrogen and oxygen of the atmos- 
phere. 
For ages the rains and snows have descended upon the adja- 
cent highlands, whence they have trickled down in ever aug- 
mented rills to the seas from which they were abstracted by the 
sun. Our ancestors wisely conserved the energies of these re- 
sultant streams and utilized their forces to drive mills, etc., 
situated at suitable points, but in recent years the problem of 
transmission of power has been mastered, and now these rain- 
drops and snow flakes, united by gravitation, but harnessed and 
guided by the ingenuity of man, expend their power upon the 
terminus of a small cable, which conveys their energies nearly 
forty miles to set countless wheels in motion; so to-night ‘we are 
conveyed to our place of meeting and have our proceedings 
illumined by the light and heat expended by the sun upon the 
waters in byegone years. 
Surely the operations of electricity are marvellous, and as we 
talk to distant friends or receive cablegrams from other conti- 
nents do we pause to think of the achievements of Bell, Edison, 
or Kelvin, or consider with the recent triumphs of Marconi that 
“ Truly day unto day uttereth speech.” Wh 
Bacteriological workers and physicians have studied the 
causes of diseases, isolated the germs of many maladies, opened 
up ways for rational treatment and discovered methods for se- 
curing immunity. 
The assiduous labors of Professor Abbe and Dr. Schott have 
produced a new series of optical glasses by means of which the 
student of nature may make deeper research into her secrets 
and more fully and critically investigate the delicate structures 
or things infinitissimal; or annihilate space and resolve the 
starry mists of the heavens, while our photographic friends 
catch the shadows of passing objects or events and print them 
in picture stories for the enlightenment of distant friends or 
future generations. 
In the plant world skilful hybridizing and careful selection 
