president's address. 411 



Since the last meeting there had been a change in the admin- 

 istration of the Institution. The late Curator was obliged to 

 resign the office in consequence of increasing years. Mr. Henry 

 Crowther, formerly of theLeedsMuseum and Yorkshire Geological 

 Society, had been appointed in his place. If it had not been for 

 the credentials with which he came to the office, they might be 

 thoroughly satisfied with the apppointment by the ability he had 

 displayed for the office since he had held it. Grreat improvements 

 had been effected by him, more especially in the ornithological 

 department of the Museum. There was a great work before 

 the Curator in the classification of the mineralogical collections. 



He had to allude with pleasure to the great increase in 

 the number of visitors to the Museum. In the twelve months 

 ending July 31st last year, there had been just over 3,000 visitors 

 to the Museum ; in the nine months which had elapsed there had 

 been an increase on those numbers — 3,200 having visited the 

 Museum during that time. It was gratifying that the members' 

 families who had used the privilege of the Institution had 

 increased over 300 per cent. It struck him that for an 

 Institution of that kind it was little generally known through- 

 out the county. Of late much more attention had been called 

 by the public press to the Institution and Museum than had 

 formerly been the case, and he thought they owed a debt 

 of gratitude to the papers for it. They hoped at no distant date 

 an occurrence would take place which would be the means of 

 attracting a large number of people on periodical occasions to 

 Truro. He could not say such would be the case, but they 

 hoped it would. People representing large districts of Cornwall 

 would come to see the Museum, would become supporters of the 

 Museum, and would assist not only by membership, but draw 

 attention to it in the various neighbourhoods they represented. 

 It was very gratifying to see the meteorological reports period- 

 ically appearing in the public papers, it was a most important 

 branch of science. In addition to the recoifd kept for the Museum, 

 the Curator prepares about 200 public reports of the weather 

 annually. He wished to call attention to the fortnightly meetings 

 of the Natural History Society, which are likely to attract 

 outsiders and increase the number of subscribers to the 

 Institution. 



