CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 209 
The Work and Aims of Our Corresponding Societies. 
Ir is nearly forty years since I suggested that the Delegates from provincial 
societies should hold a Conference at each meeting of the British Association, 
subsequently arranging for the first Conference to be held at Swansea in 1880. 
Although sanctioned by the Council of the Association it was not an official 
Conference, being the first of five managed and supported financially by the 
Delegates only. Having then been in the Chair I accept with the greater satis- 
faction after so many years the honour conferred upon me to preside at the 
present Conference. 
It was not at first, nor was it for several years, the custom for thc Chairman 
to give an address. A few remarks were made by Dr. J. G. Garson on opening 
the Conference at Nottingham in 1893, but the first formal address from the 
Chair was delivered at Ipswich in 1895 by the late Mr. G. J. Symons, who took 
for his subject certain systematic meteorological work which might be done by 
members of provincial societies. 
At the Conference held at Swansea in 1880 the following resolution was 
passed: ‘That this Conference recommends that at future meetings of the 
British Association the delegates from the various scientific societies should meet 
with the view of promoting the best interests of the Association and of the 
several societies represented.’ With this end in view it seems to me that 
Mr. Symons’ address was particularly appropriate, for it is surely in the best 
interests of the Association as well as of its Corresponding Societies that con- 
certed systematic work should be done. 
The main object of our Societies is, or should be, to undertake local 
scientific investigation, and we are here assembled chiefly to discuss the best 
means of doing so and of obtaining the most valuable results. While all should 
work to the same end, that end, whatever it may be, can best be achieved by all 
working in the same manner, or at least on some definite plan, so that the results 
may be comparable. 
It is not, however, to stimulate and direct scientific investigation only that 
this Conference should aim; there is also for it the wider field of influencing 
public opinion on the importance of far greater attention than at present being 
given to scientific education and to many problems concerned with the future 
welfare of our nation in which science may lend a fostering hand. There is no 
other country in the world which has nearly so many scientific societies as we 
have. There are on our list 120 Corresponding Societies (ninety Affiliated 
and thirty Associated) with an aggregate membership exceeding 46,000, subject 
to a slight reduction, as some of these societies are represented individually as 
well as by the Union to which they belong, and some have members who are 
also members of other societies on our list; but we may, I think, estimate the 
number of individual members represented as not less than 45,000, while 
Principal Griffiths, in his address at our Cambridge Conference in 1904, 
estimated the total number of scientific societies in the kingdom as about 500 
with a membership approaching 100,000. If we could all agree upon some 
beneficial project what an immense influence we might have! 
The ‘ Circular referring to subjects recommended for investigation by Local 
Scientific Societies,’ issued by our original Committee in 1882, had good results, 
enlisting observers and investigators in the study of the various subjects on 
which information was desired, and an extended list with instructions published 
in 1891 in the ‘Transactions of the Hertfordshire Natural History Society ’ 
(vol. vi., pt. 2, pp. 40-44) may still be consulted with advantage. 
In the Report of the Council of the Association for the year 1881-82 it is 
stated that in respect of a resolution referred by the General Committee the 
Council recommended (inter alia) ‘The appointment of a Committee in order to 
draw up suggestions upon methods of more systematic observation and plans of 
operation for local societies, together with a more uniform mode of publishing 
the results of their work. It is recommended that this Committee should draw 
up a list of societies which publish their proceedings.” The Committee was 
appointed, and its first report was printed in the Report of the Association for 
1883 (pp. 318-345). The list, drawn up by Mr. (now Sir) H. George Fordham, 
1917. P 
