17 



488rii OrvDlXARY GENERAL MEETING. 

 MONDAY, DECEMBER 7th, 1908. 

 General J. G. Halliday in the Chaik. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed and 

 the election of the following candidates confirmed : — 



Members. — E. W. Maunder, F.R.A.S., Superintendent of the Solar 

 Department, Royal Observatory, Greenwich; the Rev. Father John 

 Gerard, S.J., F.L.S., B.A. ; H. Charlewood Turner, Esq., M.A. 

 (Camb.), Secretary. 



Life Associate.— A. W. Oke, Esq., B.A., LL.M., F.G.S., F.L.S. 



Associates.— F. Gilbertson, Esq., B.A. (Camb.) ; J. C. McMurdo Given, 

 Esq., M.D., M.R.C.P. ; Mrs. J. E. Hendley ; Miss A. M. Hodgkin. 



The following paper was read by the Author : — 



OENEVA AND CH AMOUNT X HALF A CENTURY 

 AGO AND TO-DAY. {Notes of a Remit Visit.) By 

 Professor Edward Hull, LL.D., F.R.S. (Vice-President). 



( With lantern views.) 



Introduction.— Fi<?i^ to Geneva, 1852. — It is about half a 

 •century since I first stood on the banks of the Mer de Glace at 

 Ohamounix and had a view of Mont Blanc. Early in my 

 college days I had become acquainted with the glories of the 

 Alps, and was fired with ambition to visit Switzerland and its 

 wonderful snowy mountains and glaciers. I had read and 

 studied that charniing book, Norway and its Glaciers, by 

 Professor James Forbes, as also the explorations of Agassiz, 

 Charpentier and De Sausseur amongst the Alpine Glaciers as 

 related by Lyell ; but it was to Forbes that I was chiefiy 

 indebted tor what I know of the structure and movement of 

 glacier ice, as it is to his observations conducted on the Mer de 

 Olace of Ohamounix through several successive seasons, with 

 the aid of his faithful attendant and guide, Auguste Balmat, that 

 we are acquainted with the laws which regulate the motion of 

 glacier ice ; observations which were afterwards repeated by 

 Tyndall. 



Therefore, on the first opportunity that presented itself after 

 my appointment to the staff of the Geological Survey of Great 



