228 president's address. 



greatness and wisdom of the Creator in His works." Let us then 

 push on — let us not shrink from investigating nature in her 

 most recondite arcana — let us state our difficulties in the broadest, 

 frankest manner. God's revealed, and His natural truth, can 

 never he at variance : it is scientifically unphilosophical, it is theo- 

 logically mischievous to imagine so. Let us read both hooks with. 

 unwearied perseverance, and with truthful criticism, and so, while 

 drinking the pure draughts of nature's lore, we shall be led " from 

 nature up to nature's God." 



Gentlemen, I fear that my lengthened remarks have savoured 

 more of the study than of the field, but the field has been so 

 exhausted by my predecessors, that I have been driven, per force, 

 in-doors. I have to congratulate the Club on the urprecedented 

 accession of fifty-seven new members within the past year, not, 

 how^ever, unaccompanied by the mournful duty, of recording old 

 companions in the w^alks of science removed by the hand of 

 death, and among these Mr. John Storey, Corr. M. B. S., L.andE., 

 our secretary from 1849 to 1857. He contributed a paper to 

 our " Transactions," in 1851, on the " Plants occurring within five 

 miles of Newcastle," and most of our volumes are enriched by his 

 botanical notes. The preparation of a " Catalogue of the Flora 

 of the two Counties " had been entrusted to Mr. Storey, and he 

 had collected a vast amount of valuable information for this 

 object; but ill health, and other occupations, prevented him from 

 completing this task, which, we yet trust, Mr. D. Oliver may find 

 leisure to accomplish. 



The days and places for the Field Meetings were fixed as 

 under : — 



Friday, Jime 1 Riding Mill. 



Wednesday, June 27th.. Castle Eden Dene. 



Friday, July 27th Fourstones, Warden, Prudham, and 



New borough. 

 Wednesday, August 22d. Banks of the Wear, above Durham, 



Brancepeth, &c. 



