32 president's address. 



itself a sufficiently marked recognition of the general principles 

 on which the formation of this and similar Societies is based ; 

 nor need I say much of the extraordinary facilities which the 

 town of Newcastle affords for excursions to the many remarkable 

 localities to be found in the Counties of Northumberland and 

 Durham^ railways extending eastward in three several directions 

 towards the coast, as well as north, west, and south. Combining, 

 as we profess to do, the examination of objects of antiquity, as well 

 as of natural productions, we possess in this town, as a centre of 

 operations, extremely valuable Museums in both these depart- 

 ments ; and interesting as are the Border towers, the ancient 

 towns and villages, and the romantic scenery of these two counties, 

 they are rendered still more deeply interesting by the great ability 

 with which local histories of them have been compiled by 

 Hodgson, and by Surtees; and the ardent love of nature which 

 they possessed, was not unfrequently expressed in terms of truly 

 poetical description. " What spot of earth is there," says Hodg- 

 son, " which has not something remarkable about it, to the eye 

 and mind that have once become accustomed to examine every- 

 thing in nature, or connected with the history of man Civilised 

 man, wherever he goes, sees something to examine, something 

 new to engage his attention, some rock, or mineral, or plant, or 

 colony of microscopic creatures inhabiting that plant ; trace of 

 some temple, camp, or grave, that rendered them awful, or 

 powerful, or sacred, in some age. While there are some who 

 love to study the heavens, the laws and positions of the worlds, 

 and systems of worlds that float in the immensity of space, 

 there are others whose genius bends them to the less noble, but 

 still interesting study, of reviewing, within the neighbourhoods 

 in which they live, the evidences which God has written in the 

 rocks, of the changes that our globe underwent in its progress to 

 perfection ; of tracing the hand of wisdom and goodness forming 

 its surface and its soils to the infinite purposes to which they 

 are adapted. What man is there, who, when he hears the place 

 of his birth, and the hills and lands of his forefathers, made the 

 subjects of history and inquiry, does not glory in them, and feel 

 a love and veneration for them far above aught that the dull and 



