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( 44 ) address. I was prepared to find, you might expect, I should discourse on the benefits that such an Institution bestows; that I might, from my position as Chairman of the City and Guilds Technical Institute, have enlarged upon the benefits of Technical Education, and that I might have reviewed the progress you were making, and the progress that was being made throughout the country, and might have congratulated you, and the people of Great Britain, thereon. But these subjects have been rather used up of late, and I found on looking through the list of addresses of your Presidents, that they had selected for those addresses matters having no direct relation to the work of your Institute. I felt tempted to follow their example, and having obtained permission, I thought I could not interest you more than by addressing you on the subject of "Big Guns," for which task, from my position as a Civilian Member of the Ordnance Committee, I felt I had some qualifications. It is a subject of interest in applied science; a subject which I believe is not much understood, although much discussed, and a subject which is undoubtedly of very great national importance.