An invitation for the Meeting of 1905 will be presented from Cape Town. After very full consideration of the matter the Council recommend that the invitation to hold the Annual Meeting of the Association in South Africa in 1905 be accepted. The President having approached Sir Donald Currie with the object of ascertaining how far transit rates to South Africa might be reduced on behalf of the Association and its Members, received the following letter in reply: 4 Hyde Park Place, London, W., 'June 11, 1903. 'DEAR PROFESSOR DEWAR,-With reference to the call with which you favoured me the other day and to our interview of this morning, I write to let you know that, as I have to leave for Scotland to-morrow, I shall now put in writing the arrangement which I propose in order to carry out your wishes on behalf of the Association. 'I understand from you that the Association contemplate a visit to South Africa the year after next, and that you have to some extent made the necessary preparations, but that you have been very anxious to have the assurance from me that the terms for the conveyance of the Members of the Council and their friends shall be such as can have your entire approval, and enable you to have a successful visit to South Africa of a representative character. 'Further, I understand from you that it is possible that other friends will be prepared to assist the funds which will be required to make the visit successful and not onerous to those who may engage in it. 'You have suggested that you will call the Council together and that I may be invited to meet them at Burlington House, but owing to the bereavement we have suffered I am hardly likely to be able to get back to London for the time you have suggested, hence the desire which I had to let you know in writing and without delay what I have to say in order to assist you in the proposed visit of the Association to South Africa. In the first place, in regard to the terms, I propose to you that our Mail Company shall make a reduction of 30 per cent. upon the ordinary return fares which we charge to the public, this reduction to be in favour of the official Delegates. In addition, ordinary Members of the Association and members of their families may wish to accompany them, and for their passage I propose that the price shall be reduced 25 per cent. 'It is very gratifying to me to be in a position to assist. I am well aware of the immense impetus that has been given to scientific investigation in the United Kingdom by the annual meetings of this Association; and it is thoroughly in accord with the spirit of Imperialism that the Mother Country should encourage Colonial scientific effort by a visit of the British Association to South Africa. There is another reason I am happy to be of service to that body of vigorous workers who by their investigations advance their respective sciences, and by their lectures and teaching keep us in touch with the progress made in this country and in others. The efforts of such intelligent workers as yourselves are not prompted by a love of gain and a spirit of commercial enterprise, and I venture to say that all who have received practical advantages and benefits from such researches, studies, and developments should be ready to acknowledge gratefully your successes in every way in their power. 'I can lay no claim personally to having taken any part in such scientific research; but it has fallen to my lot during the many years I have been connected with steamship enterprise and Colonial mining work, in which I am largely interested, to take advantage, as I have said, of the lessons in practical science which the exertions of scientists have developed. In regard to the material for the construction of ships, whether of steel or of iron, to the advance in naval architecture, to the adaptation of power to produce suitable results, to the inquiry into the means of securing the maximum advantage in the consumption of fuel, to the application of electricity as a motive and illuminative power, and to the utilisation of telegraphy in all its forms, men like myself who have been benefited by the practical application of such discoveries are really bound to do all we can to assist you in any scheme such as you now contemplate to enlarge the scope of your aims and operations. In addition to the terms for the conveyance of yourselves and friends of the deputation to and from South Africa, which you will approve of as favourable, I shall be glad to subscribe 500l. to any fund which you will, I think, find it desirable to collect in order that all the expenses of your visit to South Africa may be fully covered. 'Professor Dewar, 'President of the British Association.' 'Believe me, yours very truly, To this letter the following reply was sent : 'DONALD CURRIE. 'British Association for the Advancement of Science, Burlington House, London, W., June 12, 1903. DEAR SIR DONALD CURRIE,-I am in receipt of your most noble response to my appeal for aid and support on behalf of the project of a visit of the British Association for the Advancement of Science to South Africa in the year 1905, and will forthwith communicate the same to the Council. May I at once, as the President, express on behalf of the Council and the Association the profound gratitude which I am sure they would desire me to convey for your generous appreciation of the work of Science, and the helpful and fatherly way in which you have responded to pecuniary difficulties. 'Yours very faithfully, The Council have received the following important letter from Sir Frederick Bramwell, Bart., F.R.S., which they desire to record in their Report: 5 Great George Street, Westminster, S.W., 'July 2, 1903. 'MY DEAR PRESIDENT,-It may, perhaps, be in the recollection of a few of the older Members of Section G that, at the Jubilee Meeting, York, 1881, I said (in a "communication" ordered to be printed in extenso), speaking of the Steam Engine, that "a change in the production of power from fuel appears to be impending, if not in the immediate future, at all events in a time not very far remote; and however much the Mechanical Section of the British Association may to day contemplate with regret even the mere distant prospect of the Steam Engine becoming a thing of the past, I very much doubt whether those who meet here fifty years hence will then speak of that motor except in the character of a curiosity to be found in a museum. 1 British Association Proceedings, 1881 Volume, page 505. 'In saying this, I no doubt then thought I was speaking somewhat hyperbolically, but from the close attention I have paid to the subject of internal-combustion engines, and from the way in which that attention has revealed a continuous and, year by year, a largely increasing development of such engines, I feel assured that although there may still be steam engines remaining in work in 1931, the output of steam engines in that year will be but small as compared with the output of internal-combustion engines. I wish to keep alive the interest of the Association in this subject, and for this purpose I should be glad to be allowed to now present to the Association 50l., which I suggest should be invested in 2 per cent. Selfaccumulative Consols, amounting in 1931 to about 1007., which sum, or whatever other sum may be to the credit of the account at that time, I should like to be paid as an honorarium to a gentleman to be selected by the Council to prepare a Paper having my utterances in 1881 as a sort of text, and dealing with the whole question of the prime movers of 1931, and especially with the then relation between steam engines and internalcombustion engines. 'I enclose a cheque drawn in your favour for 501. 'Believe me to be, yours very truly, FREDERICK BRAMWELL. 'Professor James Dewar, M.A., LL.D, F.R.S., &c., &c., • President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.' The Council, having been informed by Dr. D. H. Scott that he does not intend to offer himself for re-election as General Secretary after the Southport Meeting, desire to record their sense of the valuable services he has rendered to the Association during the years he has held that office. The Council recommend that Professor W. A. Herdman, D.Sc., F.R.S., be appointed General Secretary in succession to Dr. D. H. Scott, In accordance with the regulations the retiring Members of the Council will be : By Seniority. Captain E. W. Creak. Hon. Sir C. W. Fremantle. Professor W. D. Halliburton. By least Attendance. The Council recommend the re-election of the other ordinary Members of the Council, with the addition of the gentlemen whose names are distinguished by an asterisk in the following list : COMMITTEES APPOINTED BY THE GENERAL COMMITTEE AT THE SOUTHPORT MEETING IN SEPTEMBER 1903. 1. Receiving Grants of Money. Subject for Investigation or Purpose Members of the Committee Grants SECTION A.-MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS. Making Experiments for improv- Seismological Observations. To co-operate with the Royal Meteorological Society in initiating an Investigation of the Upper Atmosphere by means of Kites. To co-operate with the Committee of the Falmouth Observatory in their Magnetic Observations. Chairman.-Lord Rayleigh. Chairman.-Professor J. W. Judd. Chairman.-Dr. W. N. Shaw. Chairman.-Sir W. H. Preece. 1903. f |