General Meetings. On Wednesday, August 8, at 8 P.M., in the Sheldonian Theatre, Professor J. S. Burdon Sanderson, M.A., M.D., LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.R.S.E., resigned the office of President to the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., D.C.L., F.R.S., Chancellor of the University of Oxford, who took the Chair, and delivered an Address, for which see page 3. On Thursday, August 9, at 8.30 P.M., a Soirée took place at the Museum. On Friday, August 10, at 8.30 P.M., in the Sheldonian Theatre, Dr. J. W. Gregory, F.G.S., delivered a discourse on 'Experiences and Prospects of African Exploration.' On Monday, August 13, at 8.30 P.M., in the Sheldonian Theatre, Professor J. Shield Nicholson, M.A., delivered a discourse on 'Historical Progress and Ideal Socialism.' On Tuesday, August 14, at 8.30 P.M., a Soirée took place at the New Examination Schools. On Wednesday, August 15, at 2.30 P.M., in the New Examination Schools, 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 Ipswich. [The Meeting is appointed to commence on Wednesday, September 11, 1895.] ADDRESS BY THE MOST HON. THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, K.G., D.C.L., F.R.S., Chancellor of the University of Oxford, PRESIDENT. My functions are of a more complicated character than usually is assigned to the occupants of this Chair. As Chancellor of the University it is my duty to tender to the British Association a hearty welcome, which it is my duty as President of the Association to accept. As President of the Association I convey, most unworthily, the voice of English science, as many worthy and illustrious Presidents have done before me; but in representing the University I represent far more fittingly the learners who are longing to hear the lessons which the first teachers of English science have come as visitors to teach. I am bound to express on behalf of the University our sense of the good feeling towards that body which is the motive of this unusual arrangement. But as far as I am personally concerned, it is attended with some embarrassing results. In presence of the high priests of science I am only a layman, and all the skill of all the chemists the Association contains will not transmute a layman into any more precious kind of metal. Yet it is my hard destiny to have to address on scientific matters probably the most competent scientific audience in the world. If a country gentleman, who was also a colonel of Volunteers, were by any mental aberration on the part of the Commander-inChief to be appointed to review an army corps at Aldershot, all military men would doubtless feel a deep compassion for his inevitable fate. I bespeak some spark of that divine emotion when I am attempting to discharge under similar conditions a scarcely less hopeless duty. At least, however, I have the consolation of feeling that I am free from some of the anxieties which have fallen to those who have preceded me as Presidents in this city. The relations of the Association and the University are those of entire sympathy and good will, as becomes common workers in the sacred cause of diffusing enlightenment and knowledge. But we must admit that it was not always so. A curious record of a very different |