report of the club's delegate. 395
west coast; Mr. J. Spiller to the encroachments of the sea at Southwold, in
Suffolk; Mr. G. J. Symons to marine inroads at Bognor, and Mr. T. W.
Shore to the legal aspects of the matter.
Mr, Vaughan Cornish had come to the conclusion that the special pro-
tection of one part of the coast involved injury to that of the rest of the
district, and that no local work for shore protection should be begun until it
had been sanctioned by a Government Board. He thought it was most
desirable in any study of the effects of Coast Erosion to endeavour to
obtain the services of the Coast Guard, who were always at work all round
the shores of the British Isles. The proposition that it was desirable to endea-
vour to obtain the services of the Coast Guard was supported by Mr. Wheeler,
Mr. Spiller, and Mr. Scott-Elliott, and met with general acceptance. Then
Prof. Meldola moved the following resolution :—
"That the Council of the British Association be requested to bring
under the notice of the Admiralty the importance of securing
systematic observations upon the erosion of the sea coasts of the
United Kingdom, and that the co-operation of the Coast-guard
might be profitably secured for this purpose."
This resolution was seconded by Mr. Gray and carried.
At the second meeting of the Conference Mr. Whitaker
announced that action had been taken with regard to the above
resolution on Coast Erosion. It had been submitted to the
Committees of the Geological and of the Geographical Sections,
both of which unanimously supported the recommendations it
contained.
The chief subject discussed at the second meeting of the
Conference of Delegates was the desirability of "Uniformity of
Size of Pages of Scientific Societies' Publications." It was
introduced by Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, who remarked that
all who were engaged in scientific investigations were greatly
indebted to their fellow workers for reprinted papers on subjects
in which they were interested. If uniform in size these papers
were easily bound together and permanently preserved. The
desirability of encouraging uniformity in size had caused Section
A, some four years ago, to promote the formation of a Committee
having this object in view. The Report of this Committee
would be found in the Ipswich Report of the British Association,
pp. 77-79 (1895).
The standard octavo size there recommended was : Paper,
demy, the pages measuring, when uncut, 55/8 in. x 82/4 in.2 The
standard quarto size was: Paper demy, the pages measuring,
2 This is, of course, the size of the pages of the Essex Naturalist and other publica-
tions of the Club.—Ed.