YIU PUOCEEDINOS OF THE 



May 25th, 1857. 

 Anniversary Meeting. 

 Thomas Bell, Esq., President, in the Chair. 

 This day, the Anniversary of the birth of Linnaeus having fallen 

 on a Sunday, being the day appointed by the Charter for the 

 Election of Council and Officers, the President opened the busi- 

 ness of the Meeting with the following Address :— 



Gentlemen, 

 It will be reasonably expected that on an occasion so interesting 

 as the present, and so auspicious as regards the future prospects 

 of the Society, my annual Address to the Eellows should have a 

 particular reference to the important change which has taken 

 place in our position, and that my very earliest expressions on 

 again meeting you should be those of pleasure and congratulation. 

 Removed as we now are finally, from a home, where, for thirty- 

 six years, we have met together as a Society, in the most friendly 

 and united spirit, joining in the promulgation of the truths of 

 nature, in the investigation of her phaenomena, and the establish- 

 ment of her laws, with a zeal which, I may unreservedly say, has 

 never overstepped the limits of a friendly rivalry, it is natural that 

 some feelings of regret should be experienced by at least the older 

 members of our body, at our emigration from an abode associated 

 with so many pleasant reminiscences, and so much instruction in 

 our favourite pursuits, — that the place where many friendships 

 have been formed, and still more, in connexion with which many 

 ties of intimacy and afiection have been broken by death, which 

 alone could have broken them, — where so many of us have found 

 their taste for natural science excited or developed, their doubts 

 solved, or their ignorance dispelled by friendly intercourse, — 

 should be remembered with feelings of attachment and regret, and 

 that our recollections should long hover round the pleasant haunts 

 where the love of nature has been fostered and its science culti- 

 vated, without any of those countervailing elements which too 

 often interfere with the peace and harmony which legitimately 

 belong to such pursuits. 



But there are other considerations which may well counter- 

 balance any such reflections as these, and allow us to take possession 

 of our new abode, if not with unmixed, yet with prevailing thank- 

 fulness and gratification. 



It will probably be in the recollection of some now present, that 

 upon the first occasion on which I ventured to break through the 



