The Nineteenth General Meeting. 305 
bound them together as friends. (Hear, hear.) Those meetings 
were not only a source of benefit in their tendency to spread a regard 
for preservation of old buildings—for they valued the old landmarks 
of the land—but they were a fund of wealth to the country because 
those ancient edifices which enriched the country attracted from 
foreign lands—especially from America—men who admired such 
things and who had not in their own country such treasures as 
England possessed. Those Societies were engaged in various places, 
restoring beautiful and valuable old structures, and men were coming 
- from distant lands to admire those things which our forefathers had 
committed to our keeping. (Hear.) His conviction was that if such 
Societies had existed 200 or 300, instead of 40 or 50 years ago, 
there would be a very much larger number of architectural and other 
treasures in existence; and he trusted that that Society and all 
Societies having similar objects, would meet. with all the encourage- 
. ment they deserved,no matter where they held their annual meetings. 
(Applause.) 
In acknowledging the toast of the General Secretaries, the Rev. 
A. C. Smirx congratulated the members upon the prosperous state 
of the Society, and upon the erection of a building at Devizes for 
its use. He said it was very gratifying to observe that the spirit of 
archeology, and a love of natural history was penetrating into every 
part of the county, and that there was great hope that the antiquities 
of the county would be more carefully preserved than they had been 
hitherto. (Hear, hear.) 
Professor Donatpson, in responding to the health of the visitors, 
said that there was one sentence in the President’s address which 
touched him, and that was the allusion to the building which had 
been taken at Devizes for the purposes of the Society. He was of 
opinion that there was a great deficiency in the country of buildings 
of that kind. He thought there ought to be in every county some ~ 
central place in which there should be a due representation in every 
respect, in regard to the arts, sciences, literature, and antiquities of 
the county. (Hear, hear, and applause.) If they went abroad—to 
__ France or Italy—they found a civilising power in the districts which 
_ was of great importance in the form of museums for the superior 
