History of the Socieiv. 25 



Committee of two and the Secretary. Two hundred copies 

 were printed at a cost of ;£^9, only selected papers being pub- 

 lished. On September 4th, 1878, an offer, on behalf of T. 

 Corrie, to hand over to the Society " the property belonging 

 to the former Natural History and Antiquarian Society," was 

 accepted, and this was recovered on October 8th, 1880. 

 Although there are still in our possession some of the belong- 

 ings of our founders, it is to be regretted that we cannot boast 

 that our inheritance is what it should be ; the chief loss, for 

 purposes of this history, is the minute book of the original 

 Society. The principal contributors to the TrcDisactious at 

 this period were Joseph Thomson (the geologist, and after- 

 wards the African explorer), William Lennon, Dr Gilchrist, 

 and Mr J. Rutherford ; the latter is our oldest contributing 

 member, and since 1877 he has almost yearly been gi\ing us 

 valuable papers. 



Sessions 1878-1879 and 1879-1880. (No. 2.) [\'ol. VTH.] 



During these sessions the evening" meetings were held in 

 the Mechanics' Hall, where a large cabinet, which the Society 

 had just accepted for the display of its collections, could be 

 kept. The Society, either from lack of papers or with a view 

 to keeping down expenses, did not at this period live up to the 

 example left them by their forerunners in publishing their 

 Transactio)is at the end of each Session. Thus the Sessions 

 of 1878-1879 and 1879-1880 are dealt with in but one volume 

 of ninety-three pages, published in 1881. From an historical 

 point of view this volume is one of the most helpful. There 

 are no Treasurer's accounts, but a list of specimens, books, 

 &c. , belonging to the Society is given, and also a " list of 

 Members in the vSession of 1880-1881." In this, the first 

 published list since the reconstruction of the Society, it is 

 interesting to note that there are ele\en corresponding and one 

 hundred and twenty-four ordinary members, of whom thirty- 

 seven joined the Society when it was reorganised on No\em- 

 ber 3rd, 1876." Of these latter we are glad to still 

 include in our list the names of Messrs James Davidson, W. 

 A. Dinwiddie, James Lennox, Peter Stobie, and Provost J. 

 S. Thomson. These, with Dr David Sharp, Sir James 



