23 



CONFERENCE OF DELEGATES OF CORRESPONDING 

 SOCIETIES OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



In consequence of the Meeting" of the British Association for 



1905 being held in South Africa, it was arranged that the 

 Annual Conference of the Corresponding Societies of the British 

 Association should take place in London, A meeting was con- 

 sequently held in the rooms of the Linnean Society, Burlington 

 House, on October 30th and 31st, at which the Yorkshire 

 Naturalists' Union was represented by its Secretary. Delegates 

 from the following Northern Societies were also present : — 

 Hull Geological Society, Hull Scientific and Field Naturalists' 

 Club, Leeds Naturalists' Club and Scientific Association, Man- 

 chester Geographical Society, Manchester Geological etc., 

 Society, Manchester Microscopical Society, North of England 

 Institute of Mining etc., Engineers, Rochdale Literary etc., 

 Society, Yorkshire Geological Society, and Yorkshire Philo- 

 sophical Society. 



The Conference was presided over by Dr. A. Smith Wood- 

 ward, F. R.S., of the British Museum. After welcoming the 

 deleg'ates, he delivered an address, in the course of which he 

 stated, in reference to 



Field Cllb Excursions, 

 ' I deem it a special honour to have been deputed by the 

 Council to preside over this Conference of Delegates, because 

 there is no nation in the world in which local Scientific Societies 

 are so numerous or form so prominent a feature of intellectual 

 life as in the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. I also 

 undertake the duty with peculiar pleasure, because I began my 

 scientific career as an active member of the small Society at one 

 time flourishing in my native town, and it was then that I first 

 learned how to observe and how to write down my observations 

 in a logical form. None but those who have associated with 

 the scientific men of other countries, and have seen the splendid 

 isolation in which most of them are accustomed to work, can 

 appreciate the service which our scattered small Societies render 

 to the cause of natural science here. Throug-h the influence of 

 these bodies everyone who is able to devote his energies to 

 original research is assured the sympathy, and frequently the help, 

 of a multitude of cultured men who are too much occupied with 

 other pursuits to give more than superficial attention to natural 

 science. Through the same influence also a continual stream 



1906 January i. 



