26 Annual Meeting. 



Mr. John Horner presented the financial statement, and 

 compared the receipts from all sources for the past year with those 

 received in 1900. There was a decrease in the different items, 

 but their ordinary shareholders had subscribed more during the 

 past year than they did in 1900. 



The President said he had pleasure in moving the adoption 

 of the report, which showed that the Belfast Natural History and 

 Philosophical Society, which, he understood, was one of the oldest 

 provincial societies in the three kingdoms as regards natural 

 history — this was its eighty-eighth year of existence — was continuing 

 its good work. The last session was not surpassed by any of its 

 predecessors as regards variety of subjects brought forward, interest 

 taken by the public in their proceedings as shown by their 

 attendance, and as regards the very informing discussions at their 

 meetings. Their very efficient curator — Mr. John Sinclair — was 

 devoting great attention to keep their valuable museum collections 

 in proper condition, and to have them labelled correctly, while 

 some of their special collections — botanical and palaeontological — 

 had been, or were being, remounted, classified, and revised by 

 well-known specialists in Dublin, Birmingham, and Cambridge. 

 Their Society had suffered a great loss in the sudden death of Mr. 

 J. H. Davies, who frequently brought before the members important 

 observations on botanical subjects, of which he had an intimate 

 practical knowledge. The most important portion of the report 

 was that referring to the proposed transfer of the collections of the 

 Society to their City Corporation. As they were doubtless aware, 

 a deputation from that Society waited upon the Library and 

 Technical Instruction Committee in 1907, and offered their entire 

 collections and specimens in the Belfast Museum, with the cases 

 containing them, to the Corporation on loan. As a result, on the 

 advice of the Library and Technical Instruction Committee, the 

 City Council at the beginning of this year adopted that part of the 

 Museums and Gymnasiums Act (1891) which relates to museums, 

 and struck a rate of ^d in the £, which would yield ,£2,900 on 

 the present valuation, with the view of amalgamating the Society's 

 collection with their municipal collection, and steps were being at 



