THE president's ADDRESS. 307 



But onr founders were not content with providing for the meeting 

 together of kindred spirits, and the verbal instruction acquired by 

 this inter-communication, hence we are told by this extract we have 

 been discussing, that it was their intention " to acquire a Library of 

 such hooks of reference as will be useful to enquiring students.'''' 

 This department of our work, by the wise administration of our , 

 predecessors, has been steadily growing, both by donations from 

 members as well as by the purchase of such expensive books as were 

 not readily attainable by the ordinary student. This department of 

 our Club's work is receiving careful attention from our Committee, who 

 have ever striven to increase the value and usefulness of our Library, 

 feeling that nothing is more necessary to our advancement in the 

 study of Natural History than the possession of standard works of 

 reference to which we can readily gain access ; and as our Library 

 is open to us every alternate Friday evening throughout the year, 

 members have no difliculty in referring to such books as they may 

 desire to consult. 



After a Library of reference — but standing almost side by side in 

 importance — is a collection illustrating the various branches of study 

 which the student may wish to take up. This object is also 

 shadowed forth in the prospectus of the embryo Club, when it was 

 decided to collect " a compi-ehensive Cabinet of objects.''^ The 

 Cabinet of our Club, numbering over 2,000 slides, illustrating 

 Histology (animal and vegetable). Entomology, Botany, Geology, 

 and Crystallography, may justly be considered comprehensive, so far 

 as it has grown to the present time. The slides are freely circulated, 

 and prove interesting to the members. I use the word interesting 

 advisedly, because I believe the examination of slides from a Cabinet 

 to be rather interesting than instructive to those who look at them 

 for the first time. The author of a preparation who has, as it were, 

 assisted at its birth, who is acquainted with its origin and its rela- 

 tions, who has seen it in its crude and unprepared condition, has 

 thus gained a knowledge of its nature and attributes which no one 

 casually taking it for the first time from the Cabinet can be expected 

 to possess. And here I would suggest that if those amongst us, 

 who have the time as well as the requisite ability (and there are 

 many), would take such a book as Dr. Carpenter's " Microscope and 

 its Revelations," and would make a series of preparations illustrative 

 of the subjects therein treated of, a collection of slides would then be 

 formed of incalculable value, not only to the beginners, but also to 



