Geography, again, is understandable, and I have a passion for maps. In particular the Junior School's section was most impressive, and the custodians were so eager to explain and so good at it. Some of the mumbling seniors in other parts of the Exhibition might take note. And so to the real Scientists. Of course it is the spectacular that sticks in the memory. How impressive nonchalantly to light a bunsen burner with a finger tip, or watch in a vast illuminated explosion chromium being separated from . . . alas, I forget exactly from what. Or the light-hearted, "Do you want to dye, Sir", is such a superb opening gambit. I had to stay and watch the whole process. Or the gruesome : cigarette-coated lungs, dissected rabbits, embryonic chickens. As someone remarked, "I don't ever want to eat a poached egg again". As I say, the layman picks upon the obvious things. Once among the test-tubes I begin to panic. The demonstrators reel off so casually, confidently the long names. But I, who can never remember why it is that acids and alkalis turn things different colours, feel that when I suddenly meet dinitrophenylhydrazone the only hope is to turn and run. Even the knowledge that what emerges at the end is only peardrops doesn't quite reassure. I tended to go on muttering "Yes, yes" as the fluent accounts went on, hoping the demonstrator wouldn't ask me any questions, while trying desperately to ask him something which wouldn't by its very inanity betray my stupidity. They were all certainly enthusiastic; occasionally, when I asked why such a process produced such a result, there came the answer, "Oh, we haven't learnt that yet". More often they pityingly explained for me all over again. My own feeling was that it was a pity to introduce outside material. The School did so well with its own stuff that the I.C.I. plastic washers seemed impersonal, while diagrams of Atomic piles are so meaningless that it was a waste of time even to try to explain. I left, feeling that my carping criticisms hadn't amounted to very much. The Wonders of Science? Yes, very much so; I had just the faintest feeling that perhaps I'd been wasting my time all these years, just reading instead of doing.
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION Presenting Science to the Public The Editor has asked me to say something about the British Association for the Advancement of Science, whose Annual Meeting will be held in York from 2nd-9th September. The British Association was founded in 1831 to convince an indifferent public and Government that science was important. The prime mover among its founders was Sir David Brewster (U.VI
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