LS8.c. 2 Procs. of the Asiatic Soc. of Bengal. [N.S., XVIII, 
convincing unless accompanied by a full array of practical 
demonstrations. 
Restricted, also, as I have been by the short time and 
shorter leisure at my disposal and by my remote surround- — 
ings, mainly in camp, away from reference facilities, I have 
been compelled to limit the scope of this address to quite 
modest dimensions. I propose to record a few musings (I 
cannot call them more) that I have indulged in on some 
borderland aspects of science and quasi-science, which are 
prominently in the public eye just now, and to describe one 
or two mineral and survey problems that have come recently 
within my own purview. The former seem to me to claim 
your attention and demand some sort of expression at this - 
time, no matter how imperfectly I may do it—as to which I 
ask your indulgence for reasons already given. 
RELATIVITY. 
_My first essay in this line is a few comments on Relati- 
vity. In making these I have been moved by two considera- 
tions—the impossibility of ignoring so momentous a subject 
altogether and the difficulty in handling it suitably. Previous 
references to Relativity, which have been made in the Physics 
ed tentatively by them and by other physicists as a means 0 
escape from the bewildering difficulties that are nowadays 
presented by the dynamical principles governing physical 
phenomena, though others again are Jess enthusiastic, or even 
since the days when evolution and Darwinism (in a different 
oad of scientific thought) came to startle and shock the 
world. 
_The novel idea of Relativity grow with ever-increasing 
rapidity and was discussed at meetings of scientific societies. 


