196 



Tuesday, May 22iid.- Kington, Old Radnor. 

 Thursday, June 28th.— Snodhill Castle, and Dorstone. 

 Thursday, July lOth.— Church Stretton. 



Tue.sday, August 28th.— The district of Woolhope, or wherever the Com- 

 mittee may ultimately determine. 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, Rev. Wm. ELLIOT. 



Gentlemen, — In following the example of my predecessors in the chair, 

 which, through your kind favour, I have had the honour of occupying for the past 

 twelve months, and offering you a brief address on the occasion of your Annual 

 Meeting, and the expiry of my year of office, I am afraid that I shall fall very 

 far short indeed of awakening that interest which they were always able to excite. 

 I could wish indeed that my scientific knowledge were other than it is, a too 

 meagre offering to lay on the Woolhopean shrine, so that I might endeavour to 

 enlist your attention in the discussion of some of those problems that are 

 propounded to us in the great book of Nature. Being what it is, however, rather 

 than seem to shrink from my duty, I must content myself with somewhat 

 slavishly following the directions of your eighth rule, '" reviewing " succinctly 

 "the proceedings of the year past," and submitting to you one or two such 

 observations as may seem likely to be " conducive to the welfare of the Club, and 

 the promotion of its objects." And in the prosecution of the former part of my 

 task I conceive it to be my first duty to ask for the tribute of your respectful 

 regret to the memory of those honorary members, very closely connected with us 

 as they happen to have been, who have been called away by death since our last 

 annual meeting in this room. Foremost in this category the loyalty of the 

 Woolhope Club must jjlace the name of William Samuel Symonds. For to the 

 exertions of that gifted gentleman and man of science, in connection with those of 

 the late Mr. Scobie, the Club owes its having been called into existence 37 years 

 ago: and from that time till, in recent years, failing health compelled the 

 relinquishment of his favourite pursuits, the Club had few warmer friends, few 

 more instructive guides. His remembrance must remain green and honoured for 

 long time to come in the hearts of very many who have been stimulated by the 

 example of his labours and his enthusiasm, by the books of which he was the 

 author, by the papers which he read at field meetings, or by the impromptu 

 addresses which they were fortunate enough to hear him deliver. I may perhaps 

 mention here that my friend, Mr. La Touche, has been oigaged in the preparation 

 of a memoir of Mr. Symonds, which I had hoped might by this time have reached 

 publication. Than Mr. La Touche none could be better qu.'alified for such a task, 

 not only on account of the close intimacy which subsisted between Mr. Symonds 

 and himself, but on that too of his own keen sympathy with Mr. Symonds' love 

 for nature, and of his own distinction in that branch of natural science, geology, 

 in which Mr. Symonds was so peculiarly distinguished. I am sure that the 

 memoir in question will be looked forward to with no little interest by the large 

 circle of those who esteemed Mr. Symond.s' friendship, by the scientific world that 

 appreciated the depth uf his learning, by the county that was proud to reckon him 



