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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 871 



our proceedings is the one best adapted to 

 gain our ends. We exist professedly "to 

 give a stronger impulse and a more syste- 

 matic direction to scientific inquiry." The 

 council has had under consideration vari- 

 ous i^lans framed with the object of facili- 

 tating our work, and the result of its de- 

 liberations will be brought under your at- 

 tention at a later date. To my mind, the 

 greatest benefit bestowed on science by our 

 meetings is the opportunity which they 

 offer for friendly and unrestrained inter- 

 course, not merely between those following 

 different branches of science, but also with 

 persons who, though not following science 

 professionally, are interested in its prob- 

 lems. Our meetings also afford an oppor- 

 tunity for younger men to make the ac- 

 quaintance of older men. I am afraid that 

 we who are no longer in the spring of our 

 lifetime, perhaps from modesty, perhaps 

 through carelessness, often do not suffi- 

 ciently realize how stimulating to a young 

 worker a little sympathy can be; a few 

 words of encouragement go a long way. I 

 have in my mind words which encouraged 

 me as a young man, words spoken by the 

 leaders of associations now long past — by 

 Playfair, by Williamson, by Frankland, by 

 Kelvin, by Stokes, by Francis Galton, by 

 Fitzgerald and many others. Let me sug- 

 gest to my older scientific colleagues that 

 they should not let such pleasant oppor- 

 tunities slip. 



Since our last meeting the Association 

 has to mourn the loss by death of many 

 distinguished members. Among these are : 



Dr. John Beddoe, who served on the 

 council from 1870 to 1875, has recently 

 died at a ripe old age, after having 

 achieved a world-wide reputation by his 

 magnificent work in the domain of an- 

 thropology. 



Sir Hubert Boyce, called away at a com- 

 paratively early age in the middle of his 

 work, was for long a colleague of mine at 



University College, and was one of the staff' 

 of the Royal Commission on Sewage Dis- 

 posal. The service he rendered science in 

 combating tropical diseases is well known. 



Sir Francis Galton died at the beginning 

 of the year, at the advanced age of 89. His 

 influence on science has been characterized 

 by Professor Karl Pearson in his having 

 maintained the idea that exact quantita- 

 tive methods could — nay, must — be ap- 

 plied to many branches of science which 

 had been held to be beyond the field of 

 either mathematical or physical treatment. 

 Sir Francis was general secretary of this 

 association from 1863 to 1868 ; he was pres- 

 ident of Section E in 1862, and again in 

 1872; he was president of Section H in 

 1885; but, although often asked to accept 

 the office of president of the association, 

 his consent could never be obtained. Gal- 

 ton's name will always be associated with 

 that of his friend and relative, Charles 

 Darwin, as one of the most eminent and 

 influential of English men of science. 



Professor Thomas Rupert Jones, also, 

 like Galton, a member of this association 

 since 1860, and in 1891 president of the 

 Geological Section, died in April last at the 

 advanced age of 91. Like Dr. Beddoe, he 

 was a medical man with wide scientific in- 

 terests. He became a distinguished geol- 

 ogist, and for many years edited the Quar- 

 terly Journal of the Geological Society. 



Professor Story Maskelyne, at one time 

 a diligent frequenter of our meetings, and 

 a member of the council from 1874 to 1880, 

 was a celebrated mineralogist and crystal- 

 lographer. He died at the age of 88. The 

 work which he did in the University of 

 Oxford and at the British Museum is well 

 known. In his later life he entered Par- 

 liament. 



Dr. Johnstone Stoney, president of Sec- 

 tion A in 1897, died on July 1, in his 86th 

 year. He was one of the originators of the 

 modern view of the nature of electricity. 



