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to the fact that he is a member of this body of earnest workers in the 

 sause of science generally. 



Concerning the work of the summer just past, I can or need say 

 but little. The several excursions were very successful, well attended, 

 and enjoyable, and many facts new to members were obtained. The 

 study of Nature in the field is, after all, the only true method in which 

 we can obtain a correct knowledge of her mysteries. Many a geologist 

 can, in his office and at his leisure, write learned dissertations on the 

 geological structure of a country about which but little is known, which 

 may, indeed, read very well and seem perfectly plausible, but which, 

 upon actual test in the field, in some way do not appear to meet all the 

 requirements. It is, in all scientific work, only by " thought and din*- 

 of hammering," as one of our members so happily puts it, that the 

 fundamental truths can at length be reached. Ornithology, botany, 

 entomology, in fact all the branches of natural science acquire a tenfold 

 interest when their study is taken up in direct connection with the 

 objects studied, but when, by this study in the field, we have obtained 

 all the facts possible bearing on the subject, then comes the perfecting 

 process by their careful and minute study indoors. It is this feature 

 in the working of this Club, as originally contemplated, which, though, 

 possibly at times lost sight of, renders this Society so valuable, since it 

 carries on, or at least endeavors to carry on, its work exactly in this 

 way, and it is precisely for this purpose that the evening soirees were at 

 first inaugurated, that members who have spent the months of summer 

 in collecting facts, may have an opportunity of presenting these before 

 the membership of the Club, and may receive needed information or 

 light upon any |)oint that may appear to them puzzling or obscure. 

 The accounts of the several excursions, and the results attained, will be 

 found embodied in the several numbei's of the Club publications for the 

 past summer, and it is, therefore, needless for me to further refer to 

 them hero, since we infer that every membsr has long ere this carefully 

 read the contents of each number as it appeared. 



It may not be out of place here to refer to one aspect of scientific 

 work, the consideration of which has a very important bearing on the 

 question generally. Many persons have asked me, as they have doubt- 

 less asked every student of Nature in her many forms : What is the 



