74 Anniversary Address by Lord Rayleigh. —[Nov. 30, 
During the present year three parts of the Reports of the Society’s 
Mediterranean Fever Commission have been published, embodying the final 
observations and conclusions in this important enquiry, which was undertaken 
at the joint request of the Admiralty, War Office, and Colonial Office. It is 
not often that a difficult investigation of this kind can be brought to 
a successful conclusion in so short a time as two years and a-half, and the 
various members of the Commission are deserving of the warmest com- 
mendation for the skill, zeal, and promptitude with which they have solved 
the problem submitted to them. They have shown how the scourge of fever, 
which has been so long rife in Malta, and has so seriously reduced the 
strength of our garrison there, may be eventually banished from the island. 
Already their recommendations, so far as they have been followed, have 
reduced the amount of fever to trifling proportions. It now remains for the 
authorities to adopt the further precautions pointed out to them, which will 
probably banish the disease altogether. 
I have continued to preside at the Meetings of the Executive Committee 
of the National Physical Laboratory. 
The work of the Laboratory has grown greatly during the year. The 
addition to the Engineering Building and the new building for Metallurgical 
Chemistry are completed and are now occupied, while the building for 
Metrology is very nearly finished. 
A new 100-ton testing machine, one of Messrs. Buckton’s latest patterns, 
has been installed, and the increased accommodation in the Engineering 
Laboratory enables the work there to proceed more easily and rapidly. 
Great progress has been made in the equipment of the Electro-technical 
Laboratory, and research and test-work can now go on there in a rapid and 
systematic manner. 
The question of the Commercial Testing undertaken by the Laboratory 
has been the subject of investigation by a Treasury Committee, before which 
I was summoned to give evidence. It is understood that the report of this. 
Committee may be expected shortly. 
Progress has been made with the buildings at Eskdale Muir, some of 
which are now ready for occupation. It was hoped that the work might. 
have begun this summer, and the Treasury have provided a sum of £750 for 
the expenses during three-quarters of the current financial year. Owing to. 
the bad weather in the early summer this anticipation has not been realised, 
but a start will be made very shortly. The buildings are admirably adapted 
for their purpose, and will render possible the study of terrestrial magnetism 
under the undisturbed conditions which used to exist at Kew. 
A list of the more important researches is published in the Report of the 
