fessor Tyndall enable us to understand why it is blue. The pleasure derived 

 by him who looks on a mountain as a rounded or rugged eminence is very different 

 from that of him who knows why it is rounded or rugged. A swollen turbid 

 river and flooded valleys are striking to any observer, but how much more in- 

 teresting are they when we can see in them the powers which are grinding down 

 our hills and building up film by fibn new structures. Again, beauty and design 

 are often visible where the ordinary observer sees only what is repulsive. The 

 changes involved in the decay of animal and vegetable substances, for instance, 

 are at first sight seldom pleasing and very often they are disagreeable, yet we 

 find engaged as active agents in these changes hordes of animals and plants each 

 with a structxire and economy marvellously adapted to ths end in view. Further, 

 if we reflect on what a dreary world we would soon have if these animala 

 and plants did not aid in removing and converting what has ceased to live, we 

 may see in these operations the sources from which the face of nature is renewed 

 and presented to us ever fresh and young. 



Having ventured to say so much as to our objects and the spirit in which 

 we should pursue them, I may pass on to our future work. Not long ago a highly 

 esteemed member suggested that if we went on publishing a volume every year 

 we would soon exhaust the district and leave nothing to be done. A little reflection 

 will show there is no risk of this. Our field embraces both the organic and 

 the inorganic worlds, the life and changes of the present and the records of 

 the life and changes of the past ; and when we have investigated these, so far as 

 our unassisted powers enable us, we may call the microscope to our aid, and find 

 new and almost boundless worlds spread before us. Every field, I might say 

 every foot of ground reveals to the careful observer objects of interest, and even 

 the sting of a nettle exhibits phenomena which carry instruction to the wisest. 

 I have said that we should not look on the advance of science as our object, still 

 we shoxild keep it in view, and by doing so we shall probably succeed best in that 

 cultivation and development of our own minds of which I have already spoken. 

 There is work to be done which can only be performed properly by those who 

 reside on the spot. By carefully watching the quarries of the old red sandstone, 

 for instance, fossils might be saved from destruction which would help to 

 elucidate the Devonian system. Our lists of animals and plants should be made 

 more complete, and the almost un worked field of Entomology requires to be cultiva- 

 ted, whilst the continued observation of periodic phenomena, such as those pub- 

 lished by Mr. Lingwood in No. 4 of our transactions, would afford valuable 

 and interesting information. The dates of blooming of our flowers, of the ripen- 

 ing of our fruits, or of the arrival and departure of our migratory birds, besides 

 the interest of the facts themselves, may throw light on any supposed cyclical 

 or other changes in the seasons. 



The publication of Mr. Darwin's great work on the Variation of Ani- 

 mals and Plants uuder Domestication, has been the most important event 

 of the year to naturalists. Whatever opinions we may entertain as to the theory 

 of development and the principle of natural selection, there can be no doubt as 



