HE 
WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE. 
‘¢ WULTORUM MANIBUS GRANDE LEVATUR ONUS,”’—Ovid. 
THE SEVENTEENTH GENERAL MEETING 
OF THE 
Wiltshire Archeological anv Natural Mistory Society, 
HELD AT WILTON, 
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 14th, 15th, and 16th September, 
1870. 
PRESIDENT OF THE MEETING, 
Cuaries Penruppockn, Esq. 
@ Tae proceedings of the Seventeenth Anniversary Meeting of 
Sy the Society opened at the Town Hall, Wilton, when the 
attendance of the members and friends of the Society was unusually 
large. At two o’clock the newly elected President of the Society, 
Charles Penruddocke, Esq., of Compton Park, took the chair, and 
addressed the company as follows :— 
Ladies and gentlemen,—As President of the Wiltshire Arche- 
ological and Natural History Society, I find that it is expected that 
I should open this meeting with an address. I do so with the 
understanding that you will treat my efforts as leniently as you can 
—spare your criticisms, and kindly make an effort to listen to me. 
You are aware that we are assembled for the purpose of holding the 
seventeenth annual meeting of the Society. In the report, which 
will be presented to you, you will find that this Society, which was 
started on a very satisfactory basis, has gone on for seventeen years, 
“not dragging its slow length along,” but progressing rapidly and 
purpose like to the end which it is its object to attain. You all 
know that end and object. It is to collect and retain in an im- 
perishable form the complete history of our county. But, unlike 
most histories, we are not content with giving the references to 
VOL. XII.—NO. XXXVI. B 
