president's address. 165 



prospects to those who wander along the commanding heights 

 over the cliffs, now rising now falling, bnt ever covered by the 

 finest verdure and most elastic turf. Look south, you have Holy 

 Island, Bamborough, and all the Northumbrian coast; south- 

 west, and Cheviot rises in great majesty, with all Tweedside at 

 his foot. Turn round to the north, and the Isle of May, the 

 Bass, the grand opening of the Firth of Forth, and the coast of 

 Fife beyond, all seem close under the eye. It is hard to say 

 whether the English or the Scottish landscape be the fairest. 

 Nay, it is possible so to stand as almost to embrace them both ; 

 or, at least, the image of the one remains upon the senses whilst 

 we are diverting our eyes towards the other. My son was 

 greatly pleased with the excursion, and described it as having 

 been gratifying to all present. 



It gave me no small concern that he was not within call to go 

 to the gathering at Hartlepool and Seaton Carew, in September, 

 which I was unable to attend myself, though it would have in- 

 terested me greatly. Above all would I fain have been there 

 whilst one so admirably befitted as Dr. Embleton to accept the 

 responsibility of composing a memoir of our distinguished fellow 

 member, the late Mr. Albany Hancock, was to fulfil his promise 

 of reading it to those present. 



As respects the meeting at Chester-le- Street and Lumley, I 

 was much relieved to hear that it had been well attended, not- 

 withstanding the lateness of the season, and that under better 

 guidance than I could have offered, it had been very pleasantly 

 carried out. 



If I could have been present at the day's excursion in this 

 locality, I would perhaps have adverted to the lamentable condi- 

 tion of the valleys of the "Wear and of the Tyne, not only from 

 the direct effects of the volumes of opaque smoke, which are 

 needlessly emitted from so many chimneys, in poisoning vegeta- 

 tion with the sulphurous acid which that opaque smoke contains, 

 and in choking the pores of leaves and bark with acrid soot ; but 

 also the languishing condition of those naturally noble valleys 

 from a concomitant indirect injury, chargeable to the same 



