444 [Proc. B.N.F.C., 



appearance of many of our most favourite native plants was 

 common throughout the kingdom. Belfast was no exception to 

 the general rule. The process of that destruction, which a 

 cultivated public sentiment could alone arrest, occurred daily 

 in the city market, where wild plants, rooted from the boundary 

 of an ever-widening devastated area, were exposed for sale under 

 conditions best calculated to secure their final extinction. With 

 reference to the recently-constituted "British Science Guild," 

 Mr. Gray said the concentration of effort and the necessity for 

 conducting all classes of human endeavour under scientific 

 methods seems to be recognised as a necessary factor in modern 

 progress. It had been the guiding principle of the British 

 Association from its foundation. For a similar purpose an- 

 other society was inaugurated on the 30th of October last, to 

 be known as the ''British Science Guild." The British Associa- 

 tion aimed at furthering scientific methods ; the new Guild 

 aimed at the application of scientific results to the practical 

 purposes of life, in which America, Germany, and Japan have 

 been so successful. 



Referring to the Club's work and other educational move- 

 mentSj^ Mr. Gray, believing with Huxley in the "value of natural 

 science as a, means of mental discipline," said he was glad to 

 see a display of living botanical forms brought into the Municipal 

 Museum, which encouraged a hope for the development of a 

 really working municipal museum by the combination of the 

 old and new. The display of taste and ability manifested in 

 the fernery in the Botanic Gardens Park pointed to the possible 

 restoration of its old educational character both from, a scientific 

 and economic point of view. The resources of the Ulster 

 Fisheries and Biology Association offered an opportunity for 

 the practical study of marine zoology. It was to be hoped that 

 the location of the proposed aquarium will be such as would 

 serve the purpose of earnest students of science, rather than 

 contribute to the amusement of thoughtless seaside trippers. 

 Mr. Gray, in conclusion, referred to what the members could 

 do by loans and gifts of classified natural history objects to 

 help teachers in our elementary schools, and also to the several 



