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lltport of James «. pbbiari), $Ji«6.§., 



the Delegate of the Natural Science Society at the Annual Conference of Dele gat ■? 

 of Corresponding Societies at the Meeting of the British Association, held at 

 Bournemouth from September 9tk to 13th, 1910. 



The President of the Conference was the Right Hon. Lord 

 Montagu of Beaulieu, C.C., J. P., the Vice-President Mr. H. 

 Dale, F.S.A., and the Secretary Mr. Mark Webb, F.L.S. 



The Conference., met in the Municipal College on Thursday, 

 September 11, and Friday, September 12. The subject of the 

 presidential address was " Roads, Ancient and Modern," in which 

 Lord Montagu dealt with the importance of road and the history 

 of locomotion. He said that roads were now, as ever, a good 

 general test of the civilisation to which a nation had attained, and 

 at present, in the United Kingdom, compared with railways, they 

 were of equal, if not of greater, importance to the country. 



In concluding his most able and interesting address, he 

 referred to the romantic, poetical, and artistic aspects of the road. 

 In the Old Testament, he said, the road is always the, symbol of 

 something beautiful and useful. Throughout the Old and New 

 Testaments the most famous and moving incidents have all taken 

 place in or near the road — roads which we picture to ourselves 

 from youth up. It is along the road that we go to be christened, 

 married, and buried. Roads winding over hills and through dales 

 are not only means of travelling, but emblems of one of the con- 

 quests of man over natural forces, and roads over the face of the 

 world show forth all the extraordinary intelligence and industry 

 of the human race. It was, he continued, Ruskin who held that the 

 making of a road was the finest work and monument which a man 

 could leave behind him. If we may parallel the w T ell-k!jown say- 

 ing " that the man is worthy of his country who makes two blades 

 of grass grow where one grew T before," one might say to-day that 

 he who makes roads twice as good as they have been, who makes 

 them fit for the transport of his country, is as great a benefactor 

 as he who produces more out of the soil. There is something won- 

 derful but undefinable in the charm of a great road, which can 

 never be understood by those who have not felt it. It suggests 

 adventure ; it stimulates imagination ; it brings at eventide the idea 

 of home-coming, of repose after work. Co-eval with the 

 earliest civilisation and co-eternal with mankind, roads in the 

 future will be valued more and more by the community. Roads 

 will, in the future, as in the past, form a just criterion of the intelli- 

 gence and civilisation of every country. 



Following this, there was a discussion on " Atmospheric 

 Pollution of Towns," by Dr. J. S. Owens, M.D. On the Friday 

 there was a discussion on " The Measurement of Rain,", intro- 

 duced by Mr. de Carle Salter, who suggested a method of obtain- 

 ing a correct measurement of rainfall by the adoption of a standard 

 hour for the observation, and said that the position of the rain 

 gauge was also important, say, one foot above level and not on 

 sloping ground. 



