thing like what an inaugural address should be ; and I shall 

 not attempt to imitate the brilliant flights of some of my pre- 

 decessors in their opening addresses. Fortunately for me, 

 chance comes to my assistance, and, by a coincidence unknown 

 to my fellow members when they elected me, and only lately 

 and quite accidentally noticed by myself, it so happens that this 

 very evening is, to a day, the fiftieth anniversary of the public 

 opening of this Museum, that ceremony having taken place on 

 Tuesday, the ist of November, 1831. It has therefore occurred 

 to me that an historical sketch of the society and of this build- 

 ing, to myself associated with life-long, interesting, and plea- 

 sant recollections, might not be uninteresting to some of our 

 present members who know but little of our earlier history ; 

 and I hope that such a sketch may be allowed to pass on this, 

 the occasion of our jubilee, as a substitute for the usual opening 

 address. 



This society, then, was founded on 5th June, 1821, when, at 

 a meeting held at the house of Dr. James L. Drummond, he 

 and seven other gentlemen resolved to form themselves into 

 the " Belfast Natural History Society." These seven others, 

 named in the order in which they appear in the society's re- 

 cords, are the following : — William M'Clure, jun., George C. 

 Hyndman, James Grimshaw, jun., Francis Archer, James 

 MacAdam, jun., Robert Patterson, jun., and Robert Simms, 

 jun. The meetings of the society, for more than a year after 

 its foundation, were held at the house of its first president, Dr. 

 Drummond. Recourse was then had to one of the rooms in 

 the adjacent building of the Royal Academical Institution ; and 

 another year saw the necessity of still larger accommodation, 

 so that the winter of 1823 finds the society meeting " at their 

 rooms in the Commercial Buildings," where also a collection of 

 objects of natural history, the nucleus of the present Museum, 

 began to be formed. To some the names of a few of the earlier 

 members of the society may be interesting. There joined it in 

 the year of its foundation, 1821, William Tennent, the banker ; 

 and in the same year James Emerson, afterwards Sir James 

 Emerson Tennent, a life-long friend and supporter of the so- 



