PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: 



AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE SOCIETY, 



DELIVERED BY 



R. LLOYD PATTERSON, Esq., 

 On Tuesday Evening, \st Nov ember , 1881. 



On assuming, for the first time at a public meeting, the Presi- 

 dential Chair of the Belfast Natural History and Philosophical 

 Society, I feel it a primary duty sincerely to thank my fellow- 

 members for having conferred on me the honour of electing me 

 to that position. It were the merest affectation to profess my- 

 self otherwise than deeply sensible of the high compliment con- 

 veyed in such an appointment. To be successor to those 

 gentlemen who have occupied the chair since the foundation of 

 the society sixty years ago, many of them men of the highest 

 eminence in different branches of science, is a position of which 

 any man, and particularly any business man, may well be 

 proud. Yet I am not so vain as to arrogate the compliment, 

 more than in a very minor degree, to myself ; for I feel it is 

 mainly due to the kindly feeling still animating many members 

 of the society towards my father's memory, and to a desire on 

 their part to honour it through me. But it is no affectation 

 to say, as I really feel, how utterly unfit I am for the position. 

 The cares and pressure of business and other engagements, 

 coupled, I suppose, with a want of proper application, have left 

 me in the position of not having cultivated any branch of 

 science. I am therefore quite unable to present you with any- 



