1813-1914.] 



37 



Mr. Reginald A. Smith, of the British Museum, said : — Mr. 

 Chairman, ladies and gentlemen — In adding my tribute of 

 admiration and congratulation on fifty years of honest and 

 successful work done by the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, I 

 should like to express my gratification on receiving an invitation 

 to be present to participate in this celebration, and further, on 

 being able to accept the invitation personally. On the programme 

 I am described as a Delegate from the British Museum. That is, 

 unfortunately, not the case, because the suggestion that I should 

 be a Delegate came a little too late for presentation to the 

 Trustees. Moreover, that task would be more fittingly performed 

 by my esteemed colleague, Dr. Smith Woodward. My immediate 

 chief, Sir Hercules Read, is not only keeper of British and 

 Mediaeval Antiquities in the British Museum, but President of 

 the Society of Antiquaries of London, and may, therefore, be 

 taken as a representative of British Archaeology. He sends his 

 greetings, and hopes that the future will bring us a little closer 

 together to enable you and us to get something more out of the 

 Archaeology of Ireland than has hitherto been the case. I am 

 reminded on this occasion that one of the founders of the British 

 Museum was a Co. Down man. To be precise, eighteen miles 

 south-east of this spot was born, on the shores of Strangford 

 Lough, at Killyleagh, Sir Hans Sloane, who was a great man and 

 a credit to his country. He was born in that blessed year 1660, 

 and at the early age of 25 was elected a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society. I suppose most of us could not do that if we lived to be 

 a hundred. He followed no less a person than Newton in the 

 Chair of that Society, and on his death, in 1753, tne government 

 bought his collection (partly inherited and partly acquired by 

 extensive travels, especially in the West Indies), by means of a 

 state lottery, which was scandalously mismanaged. 



The President has asked for suggestions with regard to the 

 future usefulness of the Club. There are two points on which I 

 might lay stress. The first is that Archaeology should take a 



