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improving at subsequent ones it grew smaller, until ultimately it 

 became very meagre indeed, and utterly unworthy a town like 

 Dundee. It was specially notable that the cheapest tickets were 

 hardly taken advantage of at all, showing that in the class for 

 which these cheap prices were intended a taste for science had 

 yet to be awakened. Though our success in this first experiment 

 may not be very encouraging, yet your Council look upon it as 

 one of the principal duties of our Society to do all in our power 

 to spread a knowledge of science. This must be done in a 

 popular way, and if we persevere there can be no doubt of our 

 ultimate success. Knowledge is always elevating, but a know- 

 ledge of natural science is especially so. If, then, we devote a 

 part of our energies to the diffusion of such knowledge, we not 

 only enlighten the minds, but we improve the morals, of those 

 whom it reaches. Carrying out to some extent these ideas, and 

 also with the view of making the Society more widely known, 

 your Council, soon after taking office, asked for and obtained 

 your sanction to a scheme for holding a Conversazione and 

 Exhibition. In January 1876 the Society's first Conversazione was 

 held in the Albert Institute, the use of which was kindly granted 

 for the occasion by the Free Library Committee. In connection 

 with this there was one serious drawback, viz., the Society could 

 only get possession for a single afternoon, thus entailing an 

 enormous labour on those who had the preparations in charge — 

 these preparations having all to be made and completed within a 

 very few hours. Your Council, therefore, having these incon- 

 veniences in mind, determined this time to remedy them as far 

 as possible; and, with the view of allowing time for more 

 elaborate arrangements than had been possible before, they 

 engaged the Kinnaird Hall for a whole week in January. This 

 was done with the intention of getting together as good a 

 Scientific Exhibition as possible, so that, after the Members' 

 Conversazione was over, the Exhibition could be thrown open to 

 the public during the remainder of the week, at a small charge. 

 A full report of this has already been laid before the Society, and 

 it is therefore unnecessary to say much here. Your Council 

 would now simply express the opinion that it was a great success. 

 They believe that to it alone we are indebted for a large share 



