17 



other parts of the kingdom and in foreign countries. Up to 

 the day of opening, out of a total of about ^"2,000 required at 

 first, a sum of rather over ^"1,400 had been raised— a large 

 amount considering the number and means of the inhabitants 

 of the town at the time, and one which speaks well for the 

 liberality and public spirit of our ancestors. The report of the 

 council was followed by an address from the president, Dr. 

 Drummond, who, after expressing his pleasure at the state and 

 prospects of the society, alluded to the acknowledged fact that 

 the pleasure of seeing animals in their natural state is greater 

 than that excited by seeing the same objects preserved in a 

 museum, but rebutted the arguments of those who decry mu- 

 seums on that account, and who say that no one can be a natu- 

 ralist except those who become so by their own observations, 

 pointing out the advantages that museums afford in bringing 

 before us at one view the animals of the most distant quarters 

 of the world. Referring to the importance of books to the 

 naturalist, he remarked that, although observation is the only 

 way in which new facts can be acquired and existing errors 

 corrected, yet it is by books alone that those facts can be com- 

 municated to others. To men of business, whose occupations 

 debar them from opportunities of personal observation, books 

 supply the information they could not otherwise obtain. Next, 

 arguing that every branch of science is useful to every other 

 branch, he urged the propriety of adding a knowledge of natural 

 philosophy, chemistry, &c, to that of natural history, and con- 

 cluded by expressing a hope, with which, after the lapse of fifty 

 years, I entirely sympathise, that an occasional exhibition of 

 the fine arts might be held in the large upper room of the Mu- 

 seum. A Dublin journal of the period concluded a flattering 

 notice of the society and the Museum as follows : — " The Belfast 

 Museum is the first ever erected in Ireland by voluntary sub- 

 scription, and it has our warmest wishes for its success. We 

 have marked the progress of the society to which it owes its 

 origin with deep admiration, and we have sincere pleasure in 

 placing it before the public as an example worthy of imitation, 

 and deserving of national applause," 



B 



