ANNUAL MEETING. 343 



words about rushing in " where angels fear to tread." You 

 may well ask " Why then did you accept the jiost ?" I will tell 

 you why. 



In the first place, I knew that I should have the advantage 

 of sitting next to Major Parkyn and of being guided by his 

 experience, so that in all official matters he would hold the tiller 

 while I should be simply the figure head. The work and 

 progress of this Institution, moreover, do not depend on the 

 president. There are seated around this table at the Covmcil 

 meetings some of the most trustworthy living authorities on the 

 literature, antiquities and natural history of Cornwall. They are 

 always eager to promote the interests of this Institution. 



In the second place, if a high appreciation of the contents 

 of your journal witli its artistic illustrations and of your museum 

 be one of the qualifications of a president, I may say, without 

 arrogance, that I do not think anyone (;an excel me in this one 

 respect. 



In the third place, I was infiuenced by the hope that during 

 my two years of office I might be able to promote the com- 

 mencement, if not to see the completion, of a genei'al index of 

 your journal from the birth of your society in 1818. 



At the end of your volume for 18o4 the papers that were 

 read during the previous 1 6 years were arranged in alphabetical 

 order according to their titles, but this hardly deserved the name 

 of an index. No further attempt at one appears until at your 

 Spring Meeting, May "iSrd, 187(5, your president, Mr. Jonathan 

 Eashleigh, called the attention of your Council to this matter 

 and said ''great complaints are made of the want of an index." 

 Since that time an index has appeared in each of your volumes, 

 and youi' editors have made them so increasingly efficient, that 

 for the past 20 years they may be taken, for the most part, as 

 models of what indexes should he But something more than 

 this is wanted. Lord Mount Edgcumbe in his address in 1882 

 appealed for such a " Catalogue raisonne^' as would enable any 

 one to find what he wanted without searching through the tables 

 of contents or index of each separate volume. Such a catalogue, 

 to use his own words, "might in itself be a most interesting 

 volume and would add greatly to the value of all the previous 



