18 



Mr. Lees, in the course of some observations on the " King " 

 and " Queen," threw out a suggestion that these singular rocks 

 may, in times past, have served as a place of assembly for chiefs 

 and people ; and in proof of the conspicuous estimation in which 

 they were held, stated that the Manorial Court of Hardwick 

 had long been held there, and that it was only of late years 

 that it had been removed, for convenience sake, to an inn at 

 Bredon. 



With the minutes of the Bredon meetuig terminate the 

 records of the Cotteswold Club for the past season. 



We assemble again in 1869 with undiminished numbers, and, 

 I hope, with unabated zeal and enthusiasm for the ennobling 

 pursuits in which we are all united. The book of Nature is 

 so ample, her stores are so vast, her bounty so unHmited, 

 that none need despair of being able in his own sphere, and 

 by his own diligent labour, of contributing something to the 

 ever acctimulating stores of scientific knowledge, which, in an 

 accelerating ratio, are heaping up for future races of men such 

 power and wisdom as would almost seem to pass man's under- 

 standing. Yet, looking at the scientific triumphs of the last 

 half-century, it seems scarcely presumj)tuous to expect that 

 even the steam-ship, the electric telegraph, and spectrum 

 analysis, will be outdone in the future, and that these are but 

 the forenmners of still grander discoveries, by which the mind 

 of man will assert its pre-eminence — its god-like supremacy — 

 over the power of nature. 



