Annual Meeting. 13 



had been promised for the ensuing session, among those who 

 had given promises being Dr. Meissner and Mr. Barnett, son of 

 Dr. Milford Barnett. The Society also hoped to be favoured 

 with a lecture by Sir William Thomson, of whom, he was 

 sure, every Belfast man must be proud. 

 The proceedings then terminated. 



Presentation of Dr. James Bryce's Portrait. 



At the conclusion of the Annual Meeting, the company 

 adjourned to the lower room in order to receive from Mr. R. 

 Young, C.E. (acting on behalf of Mrs. Bryce), the gift of a 

 very fine portrait of the late James Bryce, LL.D., F.G.S. 



The President said the ceremony they were now asked to 

 participate in was a very interesting one — namely, to receive 

 as a gift to the Society by his widow a very excellent portrait 

 of Dr. Bryce, one of the most active and talented members of 

 that Society for a number of years. He (the President) 

 thought it was of very great importance that a Society like 

 theirs should possess as many portraits as possible of its 

 prominent'members. Portraits were always pleasant mementoes, 

 and as time went on and the reputation of men became more 

 mellowed — sometimes even made after death — they became 

 imbued with deep historical interest. A gift like the present, 

 therefore, seemed very appropriate, and would, he was sure, be 

 welcome to all. 



Mr. R. Young, in presenting the portrait, said Dr. J. Bryce 

 was, he believed, the first to introduce the teaching of the 

 natural sciences in ordinary school education. He had classes 

 for botany, mineralogy, and geology at the Belfast Academy, 

 and was in the habit of accompanying his pupils on Saturday 

 half-holidays to join them in their search for minerals, fossils, 

 and plants. When he went to Glasgow in 1847, and became a 

 teacher in the High School of that great city, he continued the 

 same course he had begun in Belfast, and the Saturday 

 excursions of his pupils and friends under his guidance to the 

 various localities, of which Arran was the most attractive, 



