8 
In order that this Society should hold the place it has attained 
among Natural History Societies, by the hard and conscientious 
work of some dozen of our members, it is absolutely necessary 
that the bulk of us should be real Nature observers, and not simply 
an interested audience. This is not asking a hard thing. We 
have seen, time after time, how a little investigation into the most 
common objects of Nature repays the naturalist a thousand-fold 
for his trouble, and in a way which recuperates both mind and 
body wearied by earning his daily bread. 
But to place this matter on higher ground, what progress 
has the ordinary man made in understanding Nature since the 
days of Pliny? Read the motto on the cover. It is clearly the 
duty of each member of our section to do something, to study 
some branch or aspect of Nature. There are many dark corners 
which want lighting up, very big corners some of them. Let 
them bring the result, however trivial it may seem, before their 
fellow members. Your secretary should be, and desires to be, 
overwhelmed with exhibits and applications to read papers instead 
of wondering what to produce at the next meeting. Most of us 
have lived half of our allotted span of life. What if at the end we 
be asked, “ What do you think of the wondrous world you live 
in?” Shall we have to answer, ‘I have not thought it worth 
while to look at it” ? 
Meetings were held at Stanfield House during 1906 as follows :— 
Friday, January 12th. Sir Samuel Wilks, Bart., F.R.S., in 
the Chair. There was a small attendance owing to the inclement 
evening. 
Sir Samuel Wilks read a paper (with exhibits) on ‘‘ The 
Cases of Death by Lightning on Hampstead Heath” on 
July 9th of the preceding year; the victims being a young man 
and his little girl. The thunderstorm came on suddenly, when 
they fled for shelter under the hedge of a keeper’s watch-box, 
and immediately afterwards a flash of lightning struck the roof, 
and passing down, instantly killed both of them. The right 
sleeves of the man’s coat and shirt were torn from top to bottom, 
and the skin beneath burnt. The child’s frock and underclothing 
were torn in the same direction, and the right boot torn to pieces, 
the foot being injured. The rents in the dresses showed, by the 
threads remaining, that the force producing them was acting 
from within exactly as if done by an explosive material. The 
wooden pinnacle of the watch-box was burst asunder from the 
centre. 
