96 ORGANISATION 



relationship with the Association, to their appropriate 

 decades, and to show the result in a curve which 

 reveals clearly the period of growth of scientific 

 interests which expressed itself in the foundation of 

 these bodies. It may well be that the existence of 

 an active local scientific society is almost a condi- 

 tion precedent to a successful meeting of the British 

 Association in any particular place ; on the other 

 hand, in some instances it seems plausible to correlate 

 the foundation of local societies directly or indirectly 

 with a meeting of the Association about the same time. 

 Thus, in 1834 the Association met in Edinburgh ; 

 in that year the Edinburgh Geological Society was 

 founded. In 1855 our meeting was in Glasgow; in 

 1858 the Glasgow Geographical Society was founded. 

 The Association was at Birmingham in 1865 ; the South 

 Staffordshire and Warwickshire Institute of Mining 

 Engineers was established in 1867. The Association 

 visited Norwich in 1868 ; in 1869 the Norfolk and 

 Norwich Naturalists' Society was founded. In 1873 

 the Association met at Bradford; in 1875 both 

 the Bradford Natural History and Microscopical 

 Society, and the Scientific Association in the same 

 city, were established ; these were preceded in the 

 intervening year by the foundation of the Halifax 

 Scientific Society. Our Southampton meeting in 1882 

 was followed three years later by the foundation of 

 the Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society, 

 and that at Aberdeen in 1885 by the foundation of 

 the Buchan Field Club in that city in 1887. 



In 1883 a committee under the chairmanship 

 of Francis Galton reported to the Council on an 

 instruction to draw up ' suggestions upon methods 

 of more systematic observations and plans of 



