I mean the munificent offer on the part of one of our members, James Rankin, Esq. , 

 of Bryngwyn, to purchase a site and to erect a suitable building for a museum 

 in the city of Hereford. The report of the committee appointed by the Club 

 to consider the subject has been presented to you to day, and you have seen that 

 the scheme proposed is likely to include a much wider object than that Mr. 

 Rankin originally sugsested. All this, however, must remain for future con- 

 sideration. I think we must all agree with Mr. Rankin that the want of a 

 museum in Hereford is very great, atid has loDg been felt — a place where the col- 

 lections of private individuals might find a permanent and welcome home — a 

 place where the possessor of a fsw valuable specimens might bestow them in 

 safe keeping, and be assured that a good use would be made of tbem ; and above 

 all, a place where the student of Natural History and Geology may find speci- 

 mens which may assist him in his studies. This want I speak of was brought 

 home to me very forcibly some weeks ago on meeting Mr. Sjmonds, of Pendock, 

 in this city, when he told me he had just been arranging for the reception by the 

 Malvern Museum of the valuable geological collection of Mr. Banks, of Kington, 

 who had lately made a present of it to that institution. Who knows but that, if 

 Hereford had possessed a building such as Mr. Rankin proposes, this collection 

 would not have been lost to the county, as is now the case ? I am ture the cordial 

 thanks of the "Wooihope Club are due to Mr. Rankin for the liberality he has so 

 judiciously displayed ; and I hope and trust that the gratitude of present 

 and future members of the Club will be such that he may never feel occasion 

 to regret that liberality. 



On looking back to the past season's work and its results, I think we 

 have good reason to congratulate ourselves on the satisfactory progress of the 

 Club. The number of our members is steadily increasing, so much so as to 

 make it now a matter of some difficulty for our Se retary to provide for them 

 at our meetings ; but it is a much more cheering thing to see that we count 

 among us a gondly number of that rare class, the accurate observers and 

 independent thinkers, and that this number is being added to year by year. 

 Valuable as our annual volume. of Transactions is, and proud as we may 

 naturally feel of it, we must never rest satisfied with that alone ; we must never 

 forget that the great value of this Club, and that which will add lustre to its 

 name, will consist in its being successful in encouraging and pointing the way to 

 patient and accurate thought and research, on the part of all its members, in 

 the study of what is commonly called Science, but which I prefer to call the 

 study of the wisdom and goodness of the Great Creator — a study which if under- 

 taken and pursued in the right spirit, and at the same time with that accuracy 

 and patience I speak of, must be productive of the most precious and enduring 

 fruit to every oue who enters upon it. 



Passing now from our own more immediate neighbourhood for a moment, 

 let us take a glance at the progress that has been made in scientific questions 

 of interest during the past year. So well are we kept informed by the periodical 



