REPOET OP THE COMMITTEE. 1-55 



" Under these circumstances the Committee trust that you will favour the 

 Society with a donation to the proposed Maintenance Fund. 



" Donations may be sent to the credit of the Natural History Society 

 Maintenance Fund, at Messrs. Lambton & Co., Bankers, Newcastle-on-Tyne. 



"John Hancock, 



" Chairman of Committee.'''' 



When it is taken into consideration that the object of the 

 Society is solely to promote and encourage the study and to 

 create and extend a taste for the Natural Sciences — to form 

 collections of all the Natural History objects found in our im- 

 mediate district, and to conserve and arrange them for the use 

 of students and the information and instruction of the public 

 generally, and to which they are admitted at a very small 

 charge — it must be acknowledged that such an institution is 

 entitled to the liberal support of the more wealthy and en- 

 lightened portion of the community. 



There is another subject your Committee wish to refer to, and 

 that is the small number of members, considering the extent, 

 population, and wealth of the district ; and they wish to suggest 

 that this would be most easily remedied by the influence and 

 exertion of each individual member inducing a friend to join the 

 Society, and thus increase the annual income. 



Now that the Society is located in its New Building, and is 

 about to enter on the Sixtieth year of its existence, it may not 

 be out of place to lay before the present members a short outline 

 of the objects contemplated by the founders of this Society, and 

 how far they have been carried out in that time. 



The Society was formally inaugurated as an independent 

 Scientific Institution in 1829. At that time, and for a few 

 years afterwards, it had not a building of its own, and the col- 

 lections were placed in hired rooms. In 1833, through the 

 exertions and influence of several of its members, a site was 

 obtained, and funds were subscribed for the erection of a Museum 

 Building, and in it the collections were arranged and exhibited 

 for more than fifty years, until, by the large additions to the 

 collections, the rooms became too small. The erection of a 



