24 Annual Meeting. 



accommodate the whole of the natural history collections of the city 

 proper and those that were going to be placed at the disposal of 

 the Corporation. He saw from the report of the Committee of 

 the Corporation that on two points they hardly saw eye to eye with 

 the Council of that Society. In the first place they would have 

 preferred that the collections of the Society should be given, not 

 as a permanent loan, but as a gift ; but it seemed to him as an 

 ordinary layman there was little difference, as one was as little 

 capable of revocation as the other. The other point on which a 

 difference seemed to have arisen was as to the continuance 

 of housing their collections in that building. The Curator of the 

 City Museum seemed to hold that it would be better to have all 

 the collections in one place, and he (Dr. Hamilton) thought that 

 any unprejudiced person would agree that that would be an ideal 

 state of affairs, as it would be most undesirable if anyone wanting 

 to study a particular branch of natural history found one specimen 

 in Royal Avenue and another in College Square North, both 

 belonging to the same species. He thought the proceedings 

 of the City Council marked a red-letter day, not only in 

 the history of that Society, but in the history of Belfast, and he 

 trusted that the progress already made would go on unchecked, 

 and that before they met for another annual meeting, that the 

 transfer, or the arrangements for the transfer, would have become 

 an accomplished fact. He thought it well that the public should 

 clearly understand that there were two things they did not propose 

 to part with. They had no idea of parting with that building ; it 

 was the property of the Natural History Society, and he hoped the 

 day was far distant when it would cease to be used for scientific 

 purposes. Even when their collection was taken to another place 

 there would be plenty of need for it to accommodate that and 

 other scientific societies, and he thought it would be a pity if 

 Belfast had not such a building for that purpose. It was also to 

 be clearly understood that there was no intention of ceasing the 

 life or history of that Society, which had now behind it an honour- 

 able record of nearly a century, and he hoped none of them would 



