42 Annual Meeting. 



carrying on the work of the Society during the past year that, 

 though they could not forestall what might take place at the 

 Council meeting, they would be glad if he would consent to fill 

 the office for a third year. Personally he thought no man was 

 more entitled to a position of that kind than Professor Symington, 

 and he was very pleased indeed to see him in the chair. 



Mr. George Kidd seconded the motion, and it was heartily 

 passed. 



The Chairman said he was exceedingly obliged for the manner 

 in which they had shown their appreciation of any small services 

 he had been able to render to the Society. It had been a matter 

 of extreme regret to himself that it had not been possible for him 

 to devote more time to the general interests of the organisation, 

 but his other duties kept him busy, and he had not very abundant 

 leisure for outside work. At the same time he thought it was the 

 duty of himself and of all persons occupying similar positions to 

 do everything they could to maintain that Society. It seemed to 

 him, as had already been stated by the President of Queen's 

 College and Mr. Gray, that it would be a disgrace to a city of the 

 size and importance of Belfast if it could not support a society of 

 that character. In the first place, they started with very high 

 traditions. The Society had, he believed, been in existence for 

 more than eighty years, and for a very considerable time it had 

 possessed an extremely valuable collection of objects illustrating 

 the zoology, botany, geology, and archaeology of that district. 



Then it had enabled the workers in any or all of those branches 

 of knowledge to bring their views before the members and the 

 public generally. They also possessed a very valuable library. It 

 was well known that while text-books of science very soon lost their 

 value, the "proceedings" of learned societes in many cases increa- 

 sed in value as time went on, and it was very difficult to get a 

 complete set of some important journals of that kind. They had 

 in their library very valuable "Proceedings," extending over long 

 periods. It would be a shame if the Society could not find in 

 Belfast sufficient persons interested in the subject to maintain it 



