Possibilities of Societihs. 45 



recently shown how much interest attaches to even as minute 

 an ecclesiastical fragment as a token. 



It would be easy to illustrate the sterling- value of the 

 work done by local antiquarian societies, especially in con- 

 nection with ancient earthworks and fortified enclosures, and 

 with Roman remains, of which you have so many near you 

 still calling for examination. The Catalogue of Ancient 

 Roman Pottery now being issued by a local society — the 

 Philosophical Society of York — is of European interest. 

 These local antiquarian societies are really the feeders of the 

 National Societies, but sometimes they digest their own pro- 

 vender with excellent effect. The best results must, how- 

 ever, be obtained by co-operation between the local and the 

 central societies, and it seems to me a wise arrangement 

 under which a Congress is held in London once a year 

 between representatives of recognised local archa;ological 

 societies and the Society of Antiquaries in London. I do not 

 know whether local antiquarian societies in Scotland have 

 affiliated themselves with the Antiquarian Society of Edin- 

 burgh, but if not, then that is a possibility of the future. 



On the Natural History, or Scientific side of this Society, 

 about which I am more competent to speak, there is a practi- 

 cally unlimited area for the operations of its members. The 

 .more widely the boundaries of science are extended, the 

 larger becomes the circumference from which new parallels 

 may be put forth, and much of the most memorable work in 

 natural history has been accomplished by the observations 

 and experiments of quiet, unobtrusive workers, with no 

 greater advantages than those possessed by the members of 

 this Society. Recognising, therefore, the earnest and enter- 

 prising spirit that now animates this Society, I look forward 

 with confidence to its future proceedings, and flatter myself 

 with the hope that it will not only go on collecting and 

 systematising facts, but will one day send forth one of those 

 commanding geniuses who gathers up facts and by their 

 attrition produce light that is the dawn of a new epoch. 

 Darwin had the advantage of a University education, and of 

 expeditionary travel with its expanding influence on the 

 mind, but he was a solitary worker, with no more apparatus 

 or institutional encouragement than is within the reach of 



