17 



mention these few cases to show that after all death is not so un- 

 kind in its action as many of us in our younger days have imagined. 

 It was my intention to say something on Euthanasia, but I find 

 that the subject is too long and touches many moral points which 

 are scarcely fitted to be raised before this society, yet I think there 

 are two or three fallacies in connection with death, which should 

 be dispelled. Death, as as a rule, is not painful, for as we approach 

 it our sensitiveness diminishes and actual death is generally 

 painless. Again, the easing of pain, if it does not save life, 

 certainly prolongs it ; therefore, whilst we are causing euthanasia, 

 we are not shortening life. 



When I began my paper, many difficulties presented themselves, 

 and do so now, yet I trust the paper to you has not been altogether 

 uninteresting nor uninstructive. I have tried to give a fair state- 

 ment of the subject as far as my time and thought would permit, 

 and those things which have been omitted, I hope will receive due 

 attention in the subsequent discussion. 



The attendance was very good. There was a short discussion 

 afterwards, in which the President and others took part. 



February 12^, 1884. 



The Annual Meeting was held at the Town Hall, the President 

 in the chair. There was a very fair attendance. The Secretary 

 explained the omission of a meeting in either December or January 

 by the impossibility of getting anyone to read a paper. He then 

 read the btatement of Accounts, which showed a balance of 19s. Id. 

 in favour of the Society. 



The President remarked on the fact that the Society was now 

 entering on the sixteenth year of its existence, and he thought it 

 was creditable to it that the number of members still kept up to 

 about one hundred. He knew of many other societies which had 

 started in the town and died out again, but there appeared no 

 bond of brotherhood' and kindly feeling so strong as the interest 

 taken in natural history. He then called upon the Secretary to 

 read the following paper on 



THE NAUTILUS AND THE AMMONITE. 



The relics of bygone worlds ! Memorials of that which has been , 

 and which can never be again ! Reminders of a time long before 

 man's foot had trodden this earth, members of a creation over which 

 he never had dominion ! What curious imaginings pass through the 



