You are all mathematicians, but almost all of you are something more than mathematicians; you are astronomers, meteorologists, physicists, or whatever it may be. Few mathematicians who are nothing but mathematicians attend the meetings of our Association regularly, and in this Chair I am not only a fish out of water, but a very small fish at that. you should see the ones that got away! An enquiry into the reasons for this state of affairs might lead to interesting observations on the purpose of conferences in general and of our own meetings in particular, as well as on the differences between one subject and another in respect of semi-vulgarisation, but it would be in the worst of taste to offer you who are here nothing but a disquisition making excuses for those who are not. Let us agree with the French that being absent they are in the wrong, and leave it at that.