President'' s Address. 19 



them, not to mention some who happily still remained. The 

 public lives of these became so interwoven with one another 

 and with those of their fellow-workers in the same branches 

 elsewhere that it might be well to mention the names of some 

 of the latter, foremost among whom as friends stood Edward 

 Forbes and Robert Ball, the latter the respected sire of a 

 distinguished son, who lately honoured Belfast with a visit. 

 The names of the others were legion, but amongst these he 

 vividly recalled Captain Graves, R.N. ; Professor Balfour, Dr. 

 Lyon Playfair (now Lord Playfair), Professor Jukes, Dr Allman, 

 the Earl of Enniskillen, Dr. Carpenter, Prince Charles Lucien 

 Bonaparte, Sir Roderick Murchison, Professor Owen, and Hugh 

 Miller, not to mention many others equally distinguished, of 

 whom, however, he had no personal recollection. Sir C. 

 Wyville Thomson and others appeared later. 



The President then dealt with the late Mr. Thompson's love 

 for art as well as for nature, and said he became president 

 of that Society in 1843, and continued to take a deep interest 

 in its affairs. An important contribution to ornithology was 

 made by Mr. Thompson in 1849 in a work on the natural 

 history of Ireland. Tt at once took the leading position its 

 exhaustive character and scientific accuracy no less than its 

 literary merit entitled it to, and confirmed its gifted author in 

 the position he had already won as the leading Irish authority 

 on the subject. The President said Mr. Thompson died suddenly 

 when only forty-six years and three months old, and, while he 

 had no recollection of the profound sensation caused in Belfast 

 by his early and sudden demise, he could well imagine it. As 

 a proof of his untiring industry, Mr. Patterson mentioned that 

 the number of Mr. Thompson's published papers, including his 

 " Natural History of Ireland," &c., was seventy -three. As to 

 Robert Patterson, he should for obvious reasons say less. He 

 survived his friend Thompson exactly twenty years. His was 

 an uneventful, busy, happy life, passed in a business to which 

 he had been brought up, which he inherited from his father 

 and left to his eldest son. With him literature and science, 



