302 The hdsh Nahiralist. November, 



Just fifty years before, shortly after the death of William Thompson, Col. 

 Sabine, President of the first meeting in Belfast of the British Association, 

 said, in his Address: — "With ample and excellent accommodation, 

 liberally provided in the fullest anticipation of our wants, and with the 

 evidence which forcibly impresses itself on every side of rapidly increasing- 

 prosperity, opening a wide field for the practical application of science, our 

 satisfaction in assembling here would be complete were it not clouded by the 

 absence of one friend who would have been among the foremost to have 

 welcomed us to this meeting which he prepared, the Naturalist of Ireland, 

 whose memory will long be honoured and cherished by the members of the 

 British Association." 



The Belfast Museum. 



Were William Thompson among us still, he would rejoice to see that at 

 length steps are being taken to redeem from the shameful state of neglect 

 into which they had fallen, the natural history collections in the museum 

 in which he took so active an interest. To Robert Patterson belongs 

 the credit of having inaugurated this welcome movement, and we have 

 already referred to what has so far been accomplished. We are glad to 

 learn that work on the collections is to be continued during the winter, Wm. 

 Swanston, R. Welch, and Robert Patterson having decided to devote an 

 evening- of each week to the work of renovation. 



The Local Press and the Meeting. 



If the educated class in general in Belfast did not rise to the occasion, 

 the same cannot be said of the local Press. Their reports of both general 

 and sectional meetings were excellent, and much impressed the visitors 

 with their fulness and accuracy. The Northern ^F//z[^ showed conspicuously 

 in this respect. The paper was specially enlarged during the meeting, 

 and devoted from twenty to forty columns per day to the proceedings of 

 the Association ; it received a special vote of thanks from the Local 

 Executive Committee for its admirable reports. 



"The Times" on the Meeting. 



The third Belfast meeting in respect of attendance has been very con- 

 siderably below the average, the numbers being a little over i,6oo, or 

 about 300 less than in the case of the previous meeting twenty-eight years 

 ago. This falling off is mainly due, we believe, to the fact that the people of 

 the neighbourhood did not take an active interest in the meeting by 

 becoming associates to anything like the extent that might have been 

 expected. The number of old life members and old annual members, as 

 well as of new life members and new annual subscribers from a distance, 

 was not below that of the previous Belfast meeting, and was up to a fair 

 average. There may be other reasons to account for the diminished 

 attendance. Although the Saturday excursions were numerous and 

 attractive enough, and the garden parties and other receptions of daily 



