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earned an honoured name in the annals of science, and who, 

 in turn, have added dignity to this office, and importance to 

 our transactions ; it is with no affectation of humility that I 

 deem myself honoured in having, though at an humble dis- 

 tance, been permitted to tread in their steps. 



Without such men, indeed, as our leaders and guides, 

 beckoning us onwards by their own achievements, and im- 

 parting, by the electricity of kindred minds, some sparks of 

 their own enthusiasm, this society would never have been 

 established, or, if set on foot, would, for want of such ele- 

 ments of life, have speedily fallen into dilapidation and 

 decay. 



The Club, which has now existed for sixteen years, is 

 linked to our memory by many agreeable recollections ; and 

 though the fickle climate of the North does not always grant 

 us genial skies, never has the smallest cloud of angry discus- 

 sion or cold indifference cast its shadow across our path ; 

 many a zealous student, on the contrary, now separated from 

 us by distance, dates his dawning love for science to his plea- 

 sant wanderings with the Club by streamlet, dale, or hill, and 

 to the feelings and associations thus enkindled and kept alive. 



If, in the pursuit of our common object, the observance of 

 nature, and the record of facts, which are the foundation of 

 our philosophy, some days have passed by unmarked by dis- 

 coveries either interesting or new, yet the whole district has 

 been by degrees more accurately mapped and laid down, and 

 its main features more distinctly appropriated and ascer- 

 tained ; and thus, by the institution of societies of kindred 

 spirit and character to our own, (with one of which, the 

 Tyneside Naturalists' Club, we are delighted to have been 

 this day brought into personal and friendly communion), 

 may the whole realm of Great Britain be brought within the 

 domain of science, and its differences and resemblances, its 

 analogies and contrasts, wrought into an harmonious whole — 

 a record alike of the reasoning discernment of man, and the 

 beneficent providence of God. Let it not be forgotten, too, 

 that the labours of the naturalist do not terminate in imme- 

 diate results — that they do not merely substitute a summary 

 of exact knowledge for the hypotheses of ignorance, but add 



