Vol. 51.] ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. lxvii 



a Museum-Assistant up to 1868 (27 years ago), since which time it 

 has had the benefit of an occasional brief revivification by some 

 enthusiastic Fellow, such as Mr. Sherborn, or some other friend of 

 fossils. 



The explanation is obvious. Other Museums exist which are 

 more easily accessible to the Geologist, and which are in charge of a 

 Curator. Books, too, with excellent figures of fossils, have multiplied 

 and increased enormously of late years, and are more accessible even 

 than Museums. 



The vast growth of scientific Literature, especially bearing upon 

 Geology, Petrology, and Palaeontology, not only in this country 

 but abroad, necessitates the continual enlargement of our Library- 

 space. Moreover the needs of Fellows, causing them to make more 

 and more use of the Library for study, point inevitably in the 

 direction of the requirements of our Society, namely, the possession 

 of a Geological and General Preference Library of the first class, 

 which by its steady growth will eventually call for the transfer of 

 the Museum to another home and the utilization of the space now 

 filled with cabinets of fossils by shelves of books. 



Amongst the various matters which have engaged the attention 

 of the Council during the past year has been the question as to what 

 Composition-fee should be paid by Fellows desirous of commuting 

 their annual subscription of £2 2s., and the further question as to 

 the amount required to be invested in order to safeguard the 

 interests of those who are already Compounders. 



"With respect to the amount of the Composition-fee, the Council, 

 after careful consideration, and taking the advice of some of our 

 Fellows who are experienced in financial matters, arrived at the 

 conclusion that the fee of ,£31 10s., fixed in 1877, was insufficient 

 to yield an annual equivalent of £2 2s., and therefore they recom- 

 mended that the fee be raised to £35, to take effect from the 

 1st November, 1894, for all Fellows who enter the Society after 

 that date and desire to compound ; and this recommendation was 

 subsequently adopted by a Special General Meeting. For the 

 16 years previous to 1877 the 'Composition-fee' was only £21, 

 a sum hardly more than half the actuarial value of £2 2s. per 

 annum, and during this interval there was (as might be expected) 

 a large accession to the numbers of the Compounders, to the conse- 

 queut disadvantage of the finances of the Society. Since 1877 the 

 number of Compounders has remained practically without alteration, 

 for the average number of new Compounders each year has been 



