August 18, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



203 



FORECAST OF THE POBTSMOUTH MEET- 

 ING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION^ 



This year, for the first time in its history, 

 the British Association for the Advancement 

 of Science will meet at Portsmouth. There 

 is no other town of similar size and impor- 

 tance in the United Kingdom which has not 

 extended hospitality to the British Associa- 

 tion during the fourscore years of its exist- 

 ence. Why Portsmouth should have remained 

 unvisited until now it is difficult to say. The 

 ancient centers of learning like Oxford and 

 Cambridge and the great manufacturing 

 centers of the midlands and the north nat- 

 urally have had the principal claim on the at- 

 tention of the British Parliament of Science 

 in the course of its peripatetic career. But 

 ports and resorts along the south coast be- 

 sides Portsmouth were long ago visited by the 

 British Association, and some have received 

 a second visit. Plymouth was the scene of 

 the association's annual meeting as far back 

 as 1841, and again welcomed the association 

 in 187Y. Southampton was visited in 1846 

 and 1882, Brighton in 1872, and Dover in 

 1899. 



With one exception, the experience of the 

 British Association does not encourage hopes 

 of a large gathering when the meeting-place 

 is on the south coast. At the first Plymouth 

 meeting in 1841, which began on July 20, 

 under the presidency of the Eev. Professor 

 W. Whewell, the attendance numbered only 

 891 persons; nor was the youthfulness of the 

 association at that time the only explanation 

 of the smallness of the number, for both at 

 Glasgow in the previous year and at Man- 

 chester in the following year the attendance 

 was 50 per cent. more. At the second Ply- 

 mouth meeting, which opened in the middle 

 of August, 1877, under the presidency of 

 Professor A. Thomson, M.D., the attendance 

 numbered 1,229 persons — considerably more 

 than on the previous occasion, but less than half 

 the attendance at Glasgow in 1876 and at 

 Dublin in 1878. At the first Southampton meet- 

 ing in 1846, which opened on September 10, 

 under the presidency of Sir Roderick Mureh- 



^ Prom the London Times. 



ison, the attendance was only 857, as com- 

 pared with 1,079 at Cambridge in the previ- 

 ous year and 1,320 at Oxford in the following 

 year. Again, at Southampton in 1882, when 

 Dr. 0. W. Siemens presided over a meeting 

 which opened on August 23, the attendance 

 numbered 1,253, and this meeting was sand- 

 wiched in between two of very much larger 

 proportions, the attendance at York in 1881 

 being 2,557 and at Southport in 1883 being 

 2,714. At Dover, also, in 1899, when the as- 

 sociation met in the middle of September, 

 under the presidency of Sir Michael Foster, 

 the attendance of 1,403 was very much less 

 than the attendance at Bristol in the previous 

 year (2,446) or at Bradford in the following 

 year (1,915). 



Brighton, however, furnishes an exception 

 to the series of small meetings along the 

 south coast, the strength of the meeting there 

 in point of numbers being such that Ports- 

 mouth will do well if it attracts anything like 

 the same attendance. The British Association 

 met at Brighton on August 14, 1872, under 

 the presidency of Dr. W. B. Carpenter, and 

 the number of people registered as in attend- 

 ance was returned as 2,533, a figure which 

 compares favorably both with the attendance 

 of 2,463 at Edinburgh in 1871 and with the 

 attendance of 1,983 at Bradford in 1873. Of 

 late years, quite apart from the particular 

 place of meeting, the numbers taking part in 

 the annual gatherings of the British Associa- 

 tion have shown a tendency to decline. This 

 is not surprising, seeing the way in which 

 scientific meetings, congresses and publica- 

 tions, affording constant opportunity for ma- 

 king known the results of research work and 

 for the discussion of those results, have mul- 

 tiplied. But the British Association still 

 holds an important and unique position as 

 the one body which affords an opportunity 

 for intercourse and exchange of ideas be- 

 tween men who are interested in different 

 branches of scientific investigation, and who 

 in these days are more subject than ever they 

 were to the dangers of too narrow a speciali- 

 zation. In providing a counteracting influ- 

 ence for this natural and inevitable tendency 



