On Wednesday, September 9, at 8.30 P.M., in the Opera House, Southport, Professor James Dewar, M.A., LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S., resigned the office of President to Sir Norman Lockyer, K.C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., who took the Chair, and delivered an Address, for which see page 3.

On Thursday, September 10, at 8.30 P.M., a Soirée took place in the Town Hall.

On Friday, September 11, at 8.30 P.M., in the Cambridge Hall, Dr. R. Munro delivered a Discourse on 'Man as Artist and Sportsman in the Palæolithic Period.'

On Monday, September 14, at 8.30 P.M., in the Cambridge Hall, Dr. A. W. Rowe delivered a Discourse on 'The Old Chalk Sea, and some of its Teachings.'

On Tuesday, September 15, at 8.30 P.M., a Soirée took place at the Town Hall.

On Wednesday, September 16, at 2.30 P.M., in the Cambridge Hall, the concluding General Meeting took place, when the Proceedings of the General Committee and the Grants of Money for Scientific Purposes were explained to the Members.

The Meeting was then adjourned to Cambridge. [The Meeting is appointed to commence on Wednesday, August 17, 1904.]

PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS.

B

1903.

ADDRESS

BY

SIR NORMAN LOCKYER, K.C.B., LL.D., F.R.S.,
CORRESPONDANT DE L'INSTITUT DE FRANCE,

PRESIDENT.

The Influence of Brain-power on History.

My first duty to-night is a sad one. I have to refer to a great loss which this nation and this Association have sustained. By the death of the great Englishman and great statesman who has just passed away we members of the British Association are deprived of one of the most illustrious of our Past-Presidents. We have to mourn the loss of an enthusiastic student of science. We recognise that as Prime Minister he was mindful of the interests of science, and that to him we owe a more general recognition on the part of the State of the value to the nation of the work of scientific men. On all these grounds you will join in the expression of respectful sympathy with Lord Salisbury's family in their great personal loss which your Council has embodied this morning in a resolution of condolence.

Last year, when this friend of science ceased to be Prime Minister, he was succeeded by another statesman who also has given many proofs of his devotion to philosophical studies, and has shown in many utterances that he has a clear understanding of the real place of science in modern civilisation. We, then, have good grounds for hoping that the improvement in the position of science in this country which we owe to the one will also be the care of his successor, who has honoured the Association by accepting the unanimous nomination of your Council to be your President next year, an acceptance which adds a new lustre to this Chair.

On this we may congratulate ourselves all the more because I think, although it is not generally recognised, that the century into which we have now well entered may be more momentous than any which has preceded it, and that the present history of the world is being so largely moulded by the influence of brain-power, which in these modern days has to do with natural as well as human forces and laws, that statesmen and