THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 7 
in their influence on plants and animals. It may be doubted 
whether any man can live long enough to understand nature too 
well in the fields, waters, and rocks, within a walk of his own 
house, much less within the country, or the whole basin of a con- 
siderable river. But the knowledge gained in our own district, 
and maturely considered, will arrange itself in the mind as a 
centre round which may be grouped facts and observations drawn 
from other regions, whether within our four seas, or far beyond 
them ; and I think we may feel sure that no men are more likely 
to make a good use of increased facilities of visiting other situa- 
tions, on the wings of steam, than those gentlemen who have so 
steadily bestowed their attention on the Berwickshire hills, dales, 
and sea-beaten shores. 
It has been one of the rules of that northern club that, at the 
end of his year of honour, the President should read, at a general 
meeting, an address, giving some account of what had been done, 
and of the observations of natural objects made at the several 
field meetings; together with any further remarks that he might 
deem adapted to the occasion. A desire having been conveyed 
in one of the resolutions passed on the formation of our Tyneside 
Club, that a like address should be read by its President before 
vacating his place, I will now do my best to obey the injunction. 
First, however, let me observe how much I regret the unseemly 
prolongation of my tenure of the chair, beyond the week of the 
Epiphany Sessions, when it ought to have terminated. The oc- 
casion of the delay in this matter, however, will, I am sure, suf- 
ficé to excuse it on my part, since it was no other than a serious 
illness of our esteemed and excellent Secretary, Mr. Thornhill, 
without whose aid and presence it was felt we could not proceed 
but at great disadvantage. The present meeting may be con- 
gratulated that our Secretary is now able to be amongst us, and 
I trust when I have read the minutes kept by him of the pro- 
ceedings of each field-meeting, it will be admitted by all that, 
though of some length, they are not spun out by any useless or 
irrelevant matter, and that there is no part of them that could be 
properly curtailed by another hand. Indeed, in justice to the 
researches of those gentlemen who exerted themselves in. the 
