FBOM BUFFON TO DABWTN. 321 



there seem to be no branches of knowledge so remote and un- 

 connected that they cannot upon occasion benignantly illumine 

 each the other. Therefore a Congress like ours aims at bringing 

 together men engaged on different lines of research, that from 

 time to time and in a measure all may understand what all are 

 doing. It aims also at bringing together men pursuing the same 

 line, that they may learn from one another the best methods and 

 the best results. It aims at bringing together those who are 

 willing to learn, that the men of long practice and mature counsel 

 may explain to the inexperienced, and to beginners full of 

 youthful vigour and energy, what is worth observing and how to 

 observe it. The object of our Union is to win for science such 

 benefits as are found to accrue in manufactures from division of 

 labour, and in trade, commerce, and finance from co-operation. 

 We think that the good work which is being done by numerous 

 local societies in isolation will be better done if they are brought 

 into sympathetic contact and join hand to hand in unselfish 

 brotherhood. 



The present Union is not the first of its kind. In this world, 

 as we know it, nothing ever is the first of its kind. To ourselves 

 there is this advantage, that we can explain our hopes and 

 purposes by reference to valuable work already done elsewhere. 

 For instance, the important and long-established Yorkshire 

 Naturalists* Union, besides having monthly summer excursions, 

 and an annual congress and an annual subscription, issues trans- 

 actions, publishes a monthly journal, and maintains a library. 

 It is divided into sections, with their several presidents and 

 secretaries, and it has a great many committees of research, of 

 research connected with the great county from which it is named. 

 Mutatis mutandis, the sort of work which we hope to do may be 

 inferred from the list of these Yorkshire committees — the boulder 

 committee, the coast erosion committee, the fossil flora committee, 

 the geological photographs committee, the marine zoology com- 

 mittee, the micro-zoology and micro -botany committee, the wild 

 birds'- eggs committee, and the mycological committee. Another 

 suggestive indication may be borrowed from the proposal for a 

 photographic survey of Devon, made to the Devonshire Asso- 

 ciation by Mr. C. E. Kobinson. He says: "The subjects for 

 inclusion in the survey might comprise the following : — 



