$90 Annual Rq)ort. 



The number of such forms a small proportion in any com- 

 Oii'iiity, aid e\ en those which are rich in these species of in- 

 iiilectual -.vealth, find that the regular drain of periodical 

 meetings, notwithstanding the excitement which they produce 

 ja localities favouring ft, tends constantly to exhaust their re- 

 sources and produce intervals of greater or less insipidity and 

 torpor in their procedure. It cannot therefore fail to happen, 

 that in so limited a community as is ours, and in a place where 

 facilities for observation are so iew, an mstitution depending 

 only on its own stores or sources of information, will be unabfe 

 to sustain the interest which novelty or discovery might be ex- 

 pected to impart to its proceedings. 



The amount also which any public organ is at any time able 

 to pour into tTie general stream of the world's information, 

 depends considerably on the period of its history. Where 

 habits of observation or inquiry are regularly exercised and 

 promoted among a sufficient number of inquirers, there will 

 consequently be a regulat flow of contributions to the common 

 stock of knowledge, varying little in rapidity or measure ; and 

 even when these habits are only occasionally exercised, as is 

 the case with the vast majority of inquirers, the number of such 

 may compensate for individual irregularity. But at the period 

 when society first begins to require such institutions, we can- 

 not expect either such perfection of habit, or compensating 

 rnfluence of number. The observers will at first be few, and 

 their observations will be only of a desultory character, and 

 'though facts which strike the attention of men are ever emerg- 

 ing frorn the repositories of nature, and occurrences flow forth 

 from among the contingencies- of coming time which iirge 

 and exercise their meditations, and there may be thus a mus- 

 tering throughout society of observations which it longs to 

 disclose, and mysteries which it seeks aid to fathom, yet will 

 the formation of a new channel to receive and diffuse these 

 Scattered notices tend at once to exhaust the store. Thus a 

 new society or a new journal cannot judge of the facilities for 

 its future continuance from the fruitful indication of its earlier 

 days, foi', in correspondence with the extent and activity of the 

 ebmmunity submitted to its agency, a longer or shorter period 

 inevitably drains away the material by which it is supported. 

 Such being the inevitable influence of time on the internal 

 resources of our Institution, the Council cannot at this period 

 of its existence offer much which is novel in the operations 

 »'f the past year. Things however have occurred of exceeding 

 iHteTest, and details have been presented which should be 

 eV'jected to awaken the attention of every liberal or philan- 

 thropic mind, but the auditors convened to receive them were 

 fieidom more than the Council themselves ; and there has thus 

 l^ea passing over all its agency the discouragement of neglect 



