May 31, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



GOT 



ser\-ices rendered to chemical science by the 

 discovery of argon.' The President added 

 that the Medali.st woukl address the Society 

 on the suhject of argon. 



Lord Eayleigh said that, in returning his 

 thanks to the Society, he was somewhat 

 embarrassed, because he felt that there 

 ought to be another standing at his side. 

 It was true that his researches, to wliich 

 the President had referred, upon the densi- 

 ties of gases had rendered it almost certain 

 that a new gas of some sort was concerned, 

 and probably that the new gas was in the 

 atmosphere. But from this jjoint to the 

 isolation and examination of argon was a 

 long step, and the credit must be shared 

 equally between Professor Kamsay and him- 

 self. In some quarters there had been a 

 tendency to represent that antagonism ex- 

 isted between chemists and physicists in the 

 matter, though such a thought never entered 

 his mind. Professor Eamsaj- was a chemist 

 by profession, while he himself had dabbled 

 in chemistry from an early age, and had 

 followed its development with a keen in- 

 terest. 



Dui-ing the cour.se of the same meeting 

 Professor Ramsay and Mr. Crookes sjjoke 

 of the isolation and spectroscopic examina- 

 tion of the gas containing helium derived 

 from cleveite. 



At the anniversary dinner in the even- 

 ing of the same day the principal address 

 was made by the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour. 

 The following extracts from this will be of 

 interest. Speaking of the attitude of the 

 statesman towards science, he said : " For 

 mj- own part, though the last thing I wish 

 to do is to suggest that the work of a prac- 

 tical politician is other than a work which 

 taxes the liighest qualities of a man, still I 

 have to admit, on looking back at the his- 

 tory of civilization, that if we want to iso- 

 late the causes which more than any other 

 conduce to the movements of gi-eat civilized 

 societies, you must not look to the great 



politician of the hour, ou \\ liom it maj' be 

 all eyes are fixed ; you must look to those, 

 often unknown by the multitude, whose 

 work, it maj- be, is never properly realized 

 by the mass of their countrymen till after 

 they are dead. You must look at them, 

 and at their laboi-s, to find the great sources 

 of social movement. We, who are carry- 

 ing on a work which I hope is not useless, 

 which, I am sure, receives its full meed of 

 public recognition, do, after all, not belong 

 to that class to which the commuuitj' is 

 most beholden for all that is to imjjrove the 

 lot of man upon earth. It is to those who, 

 very often with no special practical object 

 in view, casting their eyes upon no other 

 object than the abstract truth and the pure 

 truth which it is their desire to elucidate, pen- 

 penetrate ever further and further into the 

 secrets of Xature and provide the practical 

 man with the material upon which he works. 

 Those are the men ^\ho. if you analj'se the 

 social forces to their ultimate units, those are 

 the men to whom we owe most, and to such 

 men, and to i^i-oduce such men, and to 

 honor such men, and to educate such 

 men, the Society whose health I am now 

 proposing devotes its best energies. * * * 

 " I should like to do what I can to dispel 

 the prejudice which certainly exists at 

 this moment in many influential quartere 

 against technical education properly under- 

 stood. Technical education, properly under- 

 stood, suft'crs greatly under technical educa- 

 tion improperly understood, and there is so 

 much nonsense talked upon this subject; 

 there is so much monej' uselessly spent ; 

 there are so many things taught to persons 

 who do not want to learn them and who, if 

 they did want to learn them, could by no 

 possibility turn them to practical account ; 

 that it is no matter of astonishment that 

 some persons are dispo.sed to say that 

 ' technical education is only the last bit of 

 political humbug, the la.st new scheme for 

 turning out a V)rand new society ; it is worth- 



