The Presidents Address. 135 



ing you of the very appropriate motto adopted from the first by 

 our Society, 



' Multorum manibus grande levatur onus.' " 



The Report having been adopted and ordered to be printed, the 

 officers of the Society were re-elected, with the following additions. 

 Mr. E. C. Lowndes of Castle Combe, to be added to the Vice- 

 Presidents ; the Rev. E. Barnwell, as a member of the Council ; and 

 as additional Local Secretaries, the Rev. T. A. Preston, for Marl- 

 borough ; Mr. Brine, for Shaftesbury, or rather the portion of Wilts 

 bordering on that town ; Mr. Kinneir, for Swindon ; Mr. George 

 Noyes, for Chippenham, and Mr. Forrester, for Malmesbury. 



These appointments having been confirmed by the meeting, and 

 the formal business of the Society disposed of, the President's 

 address followed : — 



Sir John Awdry said a request had been put in print that he 

 would deliver an address upon this occasion. He had however 

 addressed the Society at considerable length at a former meeting ; 

 and as to their general objects, and the local matters of general 

 interest within the county, he had said then more fully than he was 

 disposed to repeat what were his views upon the subject. The 

 general idea of the Society was this — to follow up the history, 

 natural and human, of the county, and of the subjects connected 

 with it. He used the words natural and human advisedly, because 

 they were an Archaeological and Natural History Society, and 

 secondly, because the two branches of the Society connected them- 

 selves in this way : — Inorganic nature was first created, afterwards 

 organic, and every intelligent reader of the first chapter of Genesis, 

 be he a Darwinian or not, must see, that the creation as there des- 

 cribed, was a progressive one, of which Scripture and geology both 

 tell us that man was its final work. Therefore from the history of 

 material creation we come down to that of the existence and condition 

 of man upon this earth. We heard a great deal about pre-historic 

 monuments and records ; the word pre-historic is inaccurate, for 

 as far as they lead to any sound inference as to the former condition 

 and progress of man they are strictly historical. They are not 

 indeed annals or chronicles, that is narratives of past events. These 



M 2 



