order. Indeed, that there may be no misapprehension on this 

 head, it is an usual, though it may not be an universal practice, 

 both of national and local societies to have an advertisement, or an- 

 nouncement, to this effect printed at the commencement of each 

 of its volumes. 



That defects may be discerned in our Journal may not be gain- 

 said, but I feel assured that it must be conceded by even the most 

 captious reader, that the quality of its memoirs is, in the main, 

 good, and often excellent, and that the annual addition to it is so 

 creditable to the Society that it is a cause of regret that economical 

 considerations should compel us to keep its size within the ordin- 

 ary limits assigned to it. It must have been, I presume, from 

 various speculations of this nature as applied to local societies 

 generally, that a project, has been, ever and anon, cropping up, 

 which it is incumbent on me to refer to, and which may be spoken 

 of here, as little in the way of a digression, as elsewhere. The 

 import of the project, as more immediately concerning us, is, in 

 some guise or other, to induce these societies to operate in 

 groups. In this way, it has been said, there would be a greater 

 scope for a nicer discrimination of papers selected for publication, 

 ancl a greater freedom from the influence of partiality in doing 

 so ; whilst there would relatively be more funds at command for 

 publishing important ones, and for these an increased number of 

 readers secured. I recollect that some years ago we were written 

 to by the secretary of a Bristol Society who hoped to make that 

 the centre of a group for the west of England. With my im- 

 mediate predecessor, the present Sir John St. Aubyn, the union 

 of this Institution, the Eoyal Geological Society of Cornwall, 

 the Eoyal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and the Miners' Asso- 

 ciation of Cornwall and Devon was a favourite theme on which he 

 always argued fervently. Lastly, it was only a few months ago, 

 that at the annual meeting of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic 

 Society a sub-committee was appointed to consider with like 

 committees that might be named by the several county societies 

 alluded to, in what way concerted action between them might be 

 jDracticable. Two of the gentlemen of the Polytechnic sub-com- 

 mittee have now become our honorary secretaries, so that the 

 question can readily be taken up in earnest should there appear 

 any probability of the idea getting realized. Happily these 

 Societies have always been ready, and I am pursuaded none more 

 so than our own, to unite in a common purpose whenever oppor- 

 tunity has occurred. But to speak with candour, those members 

 of our Society Avho have been longest experienced in its working, 

 find it difficult to conceive how a closer union can be brought 

 about. Our Council are of opinion that the constituent laws of 



