SEPTEMBER 24, 1897. ] 
munications which are too good to refuse, 
and that in consequence of the press of 
work and of the extremely mixed character 
of the audience, the discussions on the 
various papers, which should be the most 
valuable and interesting part of the pro- 
ceedings, are generally of a very perfunctory 
and almost casual order. Similar consider- 
ations lead to the curtailment of the papers 
as well as of the discussion. Many of the 
authors are influenced by an undue regard 
for the feelings of the more popular part of 
the audience, and are thus impelled to omit 
technical details of the highest interest and 
importance for the due appreciation of 
their work by those competent to judge. 
Upwards of 60 communications, out of 
many more that were sent in, were accepted 
and read in the course of the five days on 
which the section met. In order to get 
through this program, it was necessary 
to sit till 3 p. m., on many of the days, 
without any intermission for lunch. On 
two of the days the section divided into 
two departments, Mathematics and Meteor- 
ology on Monday, Electricity and General 
Physics on Tuesday. This plan has been 
found to work well in previous years, but is 
not without its defects. Professor Rosa, for 
instance, was engaged in reading a paper in 
one department at a time when another of 
his communications was due in the other. 
He was thus compelled to miss the reading 
and discussion of a number of papers 
closely allied to the subject of his second 
communication, and those present in the 
electrical department were compelled to 
miss the description. of his most ingenious 
and complete electrical calorimeter as ap- 
plied to the verification of the law of con- 
servation of energy in the human body. 
Under any system of subdivision, it is prob- 
able that similar difficulties must occasion- 
ally arise, but the question is now under 
the consideration of a special committee, 
and it is hoped that some more perfect ar- 
SCIENCE. 
465 
rangement may be evolved in time for the 
next meeting. 
An audience of over four hundred as- 
sembled in the Chemical Lecture Theatre to 
hear the address of the President, Professor 
A. R. Forsyth, who succeeded Cayley in 
the chair of pure mathematics at Cam- 
bridge. His address was an eloquent and 
convincing vindication of the importance of 
studying mathematics for its own sake with 
the single aim of increasing knowledge, and 
not, as some would have it, from a utili- 
tarian point of view, as an instrument for 
the use of the engineer, the physicist or the 
astronomer. The path of practical utility, 
as he justly remarked, is too narrow and 
irregular, not often leading far. It is evi- 
dent from the demeanor of the audience 
that they were all thoroughly interested 
and engrossed in the subject of the address, 
which, it is to be hoped, may do something 
to moderate the utilitarian and technical 
spirit, and to check its inroads upon the 
sanctuaries of university education. 
The ventilation of the Chemical Lecture 
Theatre appears to have been overlooked in 
its construction; but, in spite of a somewhat 
asphyxiating atmosphere, the larger, and, 
we may also say, the wiser part of the 
audience, remained behind to hear the 
presidential address of Professor Ramsay to 
the Chemical Section, on ‘ An Undiscovered 
Gas.’ Professor Ramsay is a physicist no 
less than a chemist, and his search for the 
undiscovered member of the triad of which 
helium and argon are the extremes, raised 
many questions of the widest general in- 
terest to the physicist as well as to the 
chemist. The methods which he was com- 
pelled to adopt in treating these substances, 
which have no chemical properties, were 
also physical rather than chemical, depend- 
ing on differences of density, refractivity, 
and rate of diffusion. Helium appears to 
be unique among elements in possessing an 
extremely low refractivity in proportion to 
