6 
Your Committee, with a view to the interests of Natural 
Science, applied, some time since, to the Gilchrist Trustees for a 
Course of popular Science Lectures. The Trustees, under their 
usual conditions, responded to the appeal, and during November 
and December six lectures were delivered in the Town Hall, kindly 
granted for the occasion by the late Mayor (W. Jounson, Esq.) and 
the present Mayor (W. Fartsu, Esq.) These lectures were not 
exclusively for the members of the Natural Science Society, but 
were open to anyone at the nominal charge of one penny ; but as 
this charge would not have met the local and incidental expenses (as 
seen by the Report), your Committee were obliged to issue a certain 
limited number of tickets at 2/6 for the course, which were at once 
taken. ‘The following is the programme of the lectures given :— 
Nov. 6—* Life in the Earliest Ages of the Earth ” ............ 
By Prof. W. C. WiLu1aMson, F.R.S. 
,, 13—‘ Energies within the Earth : Mountain Making ” 
By Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.D., F.R.S. 
,, 20—‘ Energies within the Earth: Volcanoes”.......+-++ 
By Prof. P. Martin Duncan. 
Q7—' The Ice Age” ...ssscceecesseveeneeeeerces Seeeeees By Prof. W. C. WILLIAMSON. 
” 
Dee. 4—‘‘ Physical Geography of the Deep Sea” ....++--++++ 
By Dr. W. B. CARPENTER, C.B., F.B.S., &c. &e. 
,, 11—‘‘ Animal Life of the Deep Sea erevdonacwacen ... By Dr. W. B. CARPENTER. 
From the foregoing it will be seen that the lectures were not 
only popular but highly instructive, the subjects being treated by 
men who have made themselves famous in their various depart- 
ments of science, and who are masters in the art of imparting 
knowledge. It is to be hoped that the Gilchrist Trustees may 
grant us the privilege of a second course of popular lectures. 
Such instruction, and from so thorough a source, cannot fail to 
stimulate our local efforts, teaching us the value of sound know- 
ledge, and the art of adapting language to the clear elucidation 
of a subject. 
The Society has purchased, during the past year, “ Bower- 
bank’s British Sponges,” and has received several books, amongst 
them, the Rev. H. H. Hrcerns’s charming little volume, entitled 
Notes of a Field Naturalist in the Western Tropics.” The 
Library is in good order. The Museum has been completely 
rearranged, and the cases placed in permanent position. Thanks 
