188 ANNUAL MEETING—PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 
at the next annual meeting, the subject may be exhausted. Tho result 
may be an important contribution to the established facts of science. In 
any case it can hardly fail to create a larger and more intelligent area for 
the consideration of those higher problems and ultimate facts on which 
the world respects the judgment of British scientists. If no such result 
rewards our ambition, the useful effect may be to make us more 
thoroughly conversant with the natural history of our own immediate 
“district, to create a body of trained observers, and to revive the love of 
such pursuits in our elementary schools. The secrets of nature lie 
scattered in such rich profusion about and beneath our feet, that some 
scientific treasure-trove is sure to reward our patient research. The 
microscope and the test-tube have converted the ground we tread, the rocks 
we climb, and therivers and seas we fathom, into new worlds of life—*‘ Old 
and yet ever new ”—no longer to be assailed merely with the hammer or 
sounded by the plumb-line, but to be gently questioned by our finest and 
most sensitive instruments in order that their delicate tongues may 
tell in wondrous words ‘“ the story of their birth.” The exuberance of 
the minute forms of animal and vegetable life, shown by the highest 
powers of our instruments, as Professor Huxley graphically states, to 
defy arithmetic to reckon, affords a fresh and inexhaustible range of 
inquiry. Indeed, the pleasures of imagination constitute a new 
stimulus to the pursuit of science, and reward some of its noblest 
achievements, by suggesting new worlds for conquest. 
Let me then give point to these words by urging that during the 
coming year this Union should undertake the investigation, and, if 
possible, the solution of a definite subject. Some of my learned and 
scientific friends, more capable than myself of suggesting problems for 
useful work, think that you might select subjects for observation with 
the distinct understanding that at the next meeting the Council shall 
present a report founded upon such communications as they have 
received. It has been thought desirable that quarterly meetings of the 
Societies, or of the sections of the Societies, should be held for the 
purpose of keeping up and recording the work of the Union. From 
these, reports should go to the ‘‘ Naturalist” to be collated by the Secre- 
taries for the Council, who should meet half-yearly, if practicable. In the 
‘Midland Naturalist,” (Vol. I., p.242,) Mr. Harrison has proposed a scheme 
for exhaustively examining the Glacial Deposits of the Midland district ; 
and the modus operandi is very fully shown. The Birmingham Society 
has already joined in this quest; I trust that by extensive and systematic 
co-operation the subject may be successfully prosecuted and reported upon 
at your next meeting. 
It has been suggested that as in Meteorology the Union now possesses 
a band of eighty observers, provided with excellent instruments, regularly 
reporting the weather, notes of rainfall, and, if practicable, of tempera- 
ture also, should be taken at the loftiest points of the district. Changes 
commence in the upper regions of the atmosphere, and are often detected 
days before they are visible in the lowlands. Rain-gauges should be 
established on three or four of the Charnwood hills, the Wrekin, the 
