not had a very large circulation. Then another branch of its work; 

 I have alluded to, viz., the efforts to procure a public museum, and 

 then to make it attractive and instructive at the same time. The 

 eoeiety spent nearly £100 over this branch of work, and the hours 

 of time given to it I cannot reckon. The gentlemen to whom the 

 society has been most indebted in the past are the Eev. C. L. Acland,, 

 Dr. Fitzgerald, and Mr. H. Ullyett. The Eev. C. L. Acland, 

 unfortunately for us, left the town when the society was very young,, 

 the amount of time and thought given to it by the original President 

 and the Secretary is simply incredible. I find Dr. FitzGerald 

 would even read two papers at one meeting sometimes, and the 

 range and the interest of the subjects he has treated of are immense- 

 Mr. Ullyett's incessant labour I have already alluded to earlier to- 

 night. Now what do we want to make the society a useful agency 

 in the town for the future as it has been in the past ? Well, we 

 want those who love natural history or one branch of it, and who 

 have the leisure to work steadily on at some subject in which they 

 are interested, and to let us have the results, that we may all benefit 

 by them. It is time our local lists were revised and brought up to a. 

 level with present knowledge. I hope Mr. Walton will let us have 

 a local list of flowering plants, that it may be published in our 

 annual report. Then it has been suggested, and I quite agree with 

 it, and shall propose it later, that our microscopical evenings shaD 

 be only quarterly instead of monthly, and then, I hope, every 

 microscopist in the society will try to bring something of interest 

 for exhibition, that we may all profit by one another's work ; and 

 let us remember that the smallest portion of nature's handiwork,, 

 studied thoroughly, will show much of interest never known before 

 to the observer, or perhaps to other workers. 



What it was that made the original founders of the society 

 anxious to push forward all this work, I cannot exactly say, as I 

 had not the honour of being one of them ; but 1 can give many 

 reasons why I personally delight in anything that spreads far andl 

 wide, the love of nature, and the knowledge of her productions." I 

 find nature so charming in all her moods, and her works so beauti- 

 ful on every side of me, that I wish that everyone may share some 

 of this pleasure. Nature's works are God's works, and the worry 

 and the weariness and the pettiness of our daily life, the friction of' 

 things going wrong, the interminable trials of our temper by small 

 matters, — all these things may often be triumphed over and defeated' 

 by simply turning from them and losing oneself in the contemplation 

 of some of the beauties of nature. How contemptible all these trifles- 

 seem when one turns to the glorious picture of the heavens, as seen 

 on a fine night at this time of the year. Only a few evenings ago,, 

 as I was walking home, the moon was at its first quarter, shining 

 softly and clearly ; the cluster of the Pleiades, Jupiter brilliant in^ 



