CIjc |]r£sibcnfs |niiu0itral g^bi^rcss. 



Uead Tuesday, January ISlh, 1887. 



Gi'iNTr.KMi™, — On. tlio occasion of onr former meeting in tliis 

 ])l,'M',e, when it was decided to form an l^Jngineering Section 

 of the Natui-alists' Society, and you elected gentlemen to 

 fill the varions offices of Committee Men, etc., to the Section, 

 yon did mo the hononr of electing mc to bo the first Presi- 

 dent, notwithstanding my natural hesitation to assume that 

 office, on account of, amongst other reasons, my defect of 

 hearing. 



T have now to return yon my warmest tli aides for the 

 unanimity with which you did me that honour, and to as- 

 sure you, moreover, that it is the more gratifying to me 

 l)e(!ause I i,ako it to be — in a manner, and amongst my 

 neighbours — a recognition of mo as the originator and do- 

 signer of the largo and almost unpi'ccedentod engineering 

 woi-k in this noighboiirhood, which ha.s acquired consider- 

 able notoriety on its completion of late. 



You all know, of course, that I allude to the Severn 

 Tunnel. I may add that I have been all my life engaged in 

 tunnelling, having begun in the Thames Tunnel in 1837, 

 and now ending in the Severn Tunnel in 1887 ; having my- 

 self cut the first sod of the Great Western Railway on the 



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