46 Transactions. 



by the friendly acquaintance and intercourse of scientific 

 men with each other. The love of their respective studies, 

 hobbies shall I call them, is strengthened ; their flagging zeal 

 is fired anew ; and much useful information is communicated 

 and preserved which else might be lost. There is no doubt 

 that many interesting and important facts in l^atural Science 

 and in Antiquarian lore are lost, and have been lost to Science, 

 from the want of such Associations as we have this night 

 united together to form. I conceive that one chief object of 

 this Society is to collect and to preserve these facts, not as 

 mummies are preserved, to be hid out of sight, but to be 

 brought again to light, and made available from time to time 

 in adding to the stores of Science. For Science is essentially 

 cumulative in its character, being made up in the first 

 instance of numberless minute facts, which are afterwards 

 generalized, and these generalizations are either strengthened, 

 or overturned, or modified, by additional facts brought to bear 

 upon them. 



With these views as to the object of such a Society as 

 ours, I am now, at the request of your excellent Chairman, Dr. 

 Gilchrist, to bring under your notice a small botanical dis- 

 covery which I made in my parish of Colvend, some eight or 

 ten years ago. I have discovered in Colvend many rare 

 and interesting plants, and so have other botanists before 

 me, but one of the latest is that of Scutellaria minor, which 

 grows in a bog on the south side of Laggan Hill. The 

 species are found within the Tropics, in the Temperate 

 Zones, and even on the borders of the Arctic and Antarctic 

 Circles. Of these there are only two indigenous to Britain, 

 the S. galericulata and the S. minor; and they are both 

 found in Colvend. The former grows in many places 

 among the shingle along the sea-shore, and by the sides 

 of the lochs in the parish. The latter I have only dis- 

 covered in one place, but I should think it will be found in 

 other stations in Colvend, and throughout the hilly and moist 



