472 REPORT — 1901. 



able to give, should be stated in the reports of the various Committees 

 which appear in the Annual Report of the Association. 



After a long discussion Captain Dubois Phillips (Liverpool) gave 

 notice of a motion, to be brought forward at the next meeting, requesting 

 that the Conference should receive each year a report on the outcome of 

 the work of the previous year. 



The Chairman then called on the Rev. J. O. Bevan to open the subject 

 accepted of him by the Corresponding Societies Committee for discussion 

 at this Conference : ' That the Committees of the Corresponding Societies 

 be invited to lay before their Members the necessity of carrying on a 

 systematic survey of their counties in respect to ethnology, ethnography, 

 botany, meteorology, ornithology, archreology, folklore, &c.' 



Mr. Bevan said : — 



Looking at the number of Societies Involved — at the facts that they are 

 at work all the year round, collecting and assorting material — that a 

 spirit of inquiry has been evoked as to the means by which a larger 

 number of Societies could be knit to the General Association and a more 

 complete co-ordination secured — it seems permissible to think that (with 

 proper care and foresight) the Conference of Delegates bids fair to become 

 as important an element of the British Association as any of the Sections ; 

 nay,more, that it may be developed so as to fulfil an independent function 

 and to constitute the Association a General Clearing House of Science. 



For some time past the Delegates have been inquiring at the annual 

 meetings: ' What can we do — what can our Society do — to further the 

 ends of science through the Association 1 ' 



Undeniably, the complete solution of this question will demand more 

 thought and energy on the part of the Delegates, and on that of the 

 Corresponding Societies Committee ; but it need hardly be contended 

 that if a thing be worth doing It Is worth doing well, or that if a Con- 

 fennice of Delegates be run at all It should be run on business lines. 



In all countries there is, and has long been going on, the preparation 

 of more or less complete researches, and even the production of mono- 

 graphs dealing with all forms of nature and life — of archseology and 

 history — of population and resources — of health and disease — and the 

 like ; but this has been usually without preliminary consultation and 

 agreement between the several bodies engaged as to details of plan or 

 scale. Consequently, the work is carried on without any unity as to 

 the result, eventuating in greatly diminished usefulness and even 

 intelligibility. Hence, the existence of general surveys — ordnance, geo- 

 logical, meteorological, botanical, anthropological, and archEeologlcal — - 

 in all stages of conjecture and incompleteness ; but the interrela- 

 tions of things, e.g., of geology with geography — of flora and fauna 

 with soil and climate — of territory with race and occupation, with 

 national character and religious belief — have been suffered to remain 

 unrecognised. Thus national, and especially international, comparison Is 

 rendered extremely difficult ; in fact, no adequate comparison can be said 

 to exist. One of the conclusions at which we arrive is that even the 

 better monographic work of the past needs collation, rearrangement, and 

 revision. The solution of the problem, however, is fairly in sight, viz., 

 that of uniting all surveys into a regional survey, in which, as far as 

 possible, all the classes of phenomena occurring In a specific region can 

 be observed, recorded, and cor related with each other, so as to hinge 

 together all the sequences of cause and effect. 



