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paper on the echinoderms, illustrated by a number of beautiful 

 specimens, observing most justly, that whatever members are 

 present constitute a meeting, and that it would be a bad precedent 

 to give or withhold papers, according to the numbers present. 

 This paper was indeed worthy of a far larger audience, and the 

 Club may boast of a contribution to science, of which large and 

 metropolitan bodies envy us the possession. 



And here let me finish the account of the year's proceedings. 

 I trust that I may congratulate the Club on its prosperity — for 

 our prosperity does not mean wealth, rank, or honours — it means 

 the enjoyment of healthy exercise in beautiful scenery — the cheer- 

 ful converse and companionship of many friends interested in the 

 same subject — and, above all, the raising of our minds to those 

 thoughts which are equally excited by the relics of remote anti- 

 quity, found in the depths of earth, or by the powerful and rapid 

 motions of the falcon in the air — by the insect, barely to be dis- 

 cerned by the microscope of man's utmost ingenuity — or by the 

 mountain, whose vastness strikes us with awe : — even the more 

 powerfully we feel the sense of our own nothingness, (which 

 strikes us more strongly the more light we gain) by so much 

 more do we estimate that light which leads us upward to nobler 

 and wiser thoughts. 



