lias to be created, and has so long been suiipressed by the deplorable 

 state of the City Museum, couceruiug which your Committee had to 

 express rogi-et in their last Re^iort. To superficial obsei-vers, the 

 natural history of a small district might appear very limited ; but 

 it is really so very extensive as to require the co-operation of many 

 good naturalists for its successful cultivation, and even then would 

 be neither exhausted nor completed. And, as ah-eady intimated, 

 the City Museum has of late years contributed little, while it might 

 have done much, towards this desirable end. But this has at least 

 been pi'omoted by the frequent Lectures, Discourses, Demon- 

 strations, and Exhibitions at the Evening Meetings of your Society. 

 Besides, during the past year it has done something more in con- 

 tributions to the general stock of natural science, as may be 

 seen by the shoi't abstract, in pages 9 to 16 of the present Report, 

 of such portions of the Society's Proceedings as appeared in 

 the " Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science " for Januai-y, 

 1872. 



Still that abstract, being necessarily confined chiefly to micro- 

 scopical work, takes so little notice of larger labours that it remains 

 to mention them. At the meetings were given Lectures and other 

 forms of contribution admirably suited to cultivate a taste for 

 Natural History. For these services the cordial thanks of the 

 Society are especially due to Dr. Mitchinson, Colonel Horsley, 

 Colonel Cox, Major Munn, Mr. Sibert Saunders, Mr. Dowker, Mr. 

 Gulliver, and Mr. George Gulliver. The same thanks were weU 

 earned too by Colonel Horsley, Colonel Cox, Mr. Sidney Harvey, 

 Mr. Sibert Saunders, Mr. Bell, Mr. Fullagar, and Mr. Down, for the 

 valuable illustrations afforded by their microscopes; and to Mr. 

 Fullagar for the frequent exhibitions of living specimens of the 

 lower animals kept in his aquarium, concerning many of which he 

 often commimicated interesting drawings and practical obsei-vations 

 to the Society. The exhibition by Colonel Cox of his collection of 

 Beach Pebbles, in connection with his excellent Lecture thereon, 

 proved very interesting and instnictive at one or two of the evening 

 meetings ; nor was Mr. Dowker's Lecture in the field, at the Dover 

 excursion, less valuable, happily using as he did on the occasion 

 nature's own diagi-ams, as they still stand, in illustration of the 

 geology of that district. Indeed, your Committee have no hesitation 

 in expressing the conviction that the gratuitous services of the 

 members of the Society have been far more useful than any that it 

 could have obtained from paid lecturers. 



As to the publication of such Proceedings, they have been 

 reg\ilarly reported, so much to the credit of our local press, in the 

 Kenthh Gazette, as to meet with the warm commendation of many 

 members of the Society, and to find a place in several of the London 

 jouraals. But such matters, though highly valuable to the members 

 present at the Meetings, to many necessarily absent, and to a large 

 number of other persons interested in local news, were not intended 

 for separate piiblication by the Society ; and, indeed, from the great 

 extent of the papers, such i^ublication would be out of the question, 

 and they are accordingly preserved for reference in the Minutes of 

 the Meetings. There is, however, one address, that on the Objects 

 and Management of Museums, which has an application so general 

 and particular, and which has been so frequently applied for, that 



