230 Timehri, 
This body will furnish the scientific and literary knowledge and the 
practical experience which should not alone maintain the high level 
won by the magazine in the past, but should make it a permanent 
influence for progress in British Guiana and in the West Indies. 
In the present number as in preceding numbers the purely scientifie side 
of the magazine has been principally supervised by my learned colleague 
and co-editor, Mr. Jas. Rodway, F.L.S., but his assistance has been 
forthcoming in every department including those of sub-editing and 
management. In announcing the conclusion of the first volume of the 
new series and the transference of the general control to the editorial 
committee I desire to call attention to the services he has rendered as 
well as to those which have at all times been generously given by Rey. 
Mr. Aiken and Mr. George Mackenzie. Timehri and the Society also 
owe much to the publisher, our Honorary Secretary, Mr. John Cunningham, 
who has been compelled vittute officii to withhold from commerce and 
journalism some of the energies meant for mankind. To all the work of 
reviving the Society’s magazine has been a labour of love. 
The general work of the Society continues to progress even more 
favourably than was anticipated at the beginning of the year. Before the 
close of the session some twenty-three papers and lectures will have testi- 
fied to its varied activities. Its somewhat antiquated executive system 
has been modernized and simplitied and the Museum has been placed 
under the supervision of a Committee, divided into numerous sub- 
committees, which should render much assistance to the Curator. The 
Society will be represented at the forthcoming Agricultural Conference in 
Trinidad in January and it looks forward to playing an active part in 
every phase (except the purely political) of the life of the colony and of 
the West Indies during the coming year. The membership is now 
approaching the six hundred mark to which it may be advisable to limit 
it. Much ampler funds are in sight for purchases of new books and for 
the renewal of some of our present stock of 30,000 volumes. A new 
catalogue is in course of preparation and every effort will be made to 
avoid Lord Rosebery’s reproach, which all such large collections are in 
danger of incurring, viz., of becoming a mere cemetery of dead books. 
JOSEPH J. NUNAN, 
President of the Royal Agricultural 
and Commercial Society. 
