175 



NOTES ON THE REPORT OF THE CONFER- 

 ENCE OF DELEGATES OF THE CORRE- 

 SPONDING SOCIETIES OF THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION, HELD AT EDINBURGH, 1892. 



'"PHE Report of the Edinburgh Conference has already been 

 printed, and copies of it have been sent to the secretaries and 

 delegates of the Corfesponding Societies. But as these societies are 

 at present forty-two, and as the average number of members in each 

 is probably over 300, it is obvious that the British Association can 

 hardly be expected to send copies of the Report to individual mem- 

 bers. Yet, as it is most desirable that the local Societies should 

 co-operate as fully as possible with the British Association, I was 

 directed, as secretary to the Corresponding Societies Committee, to 

 forward with the Report a list of the Committees appointed by the 

 Association, also a letter from which I here extract the concluding 

 paragraph : 



" I am also requested by the Corresponding Societies Committee 

 to ask you to urge upon your Society, and its members individually, 

 the importance of taking part in the work of as many of the Com- 

 mittees mentioned in the accompanying list as may be found 

 practicable in your district. For further particulars concerning the 

 work of these Committees communications should be addressed to 

 their respective secretaries or to the secretary of the British Associa- 

 tion." 



These Committees are altogether seventy in number, but the 

 co-operation of the Corresponding Societies is important only with 

 regard to eleven or twelve of them. The discussions at the Con- 

 ference of Delegates are confined to subjects about which it is 

 especially necessary that the delegates should exchange views and 

 experiences, so that either those Societies which happen to be some- 

 what backward in any special subject may learn from the more 

 advanced therein, and a common standard of work be attained ; or 

 some united course of action be fixed upon. 



One Committee is concerned with the production and .collection 

 of meteorological photographs ; and at Edinburgh the desirability of 

 obtaining photographs illustrating the damage done by floods, 

 whirlwinds, etc., the difficulties of taking such photographs, and the 

 work done in this department by certain Societies, were discussed 

 and some photographs exhibited. Another Committee exists in 

 order to collect and preserve geological photographs. A large 

 number of these was exhibited, and it was thought important that 



