Science. No one knew better than myself the weakness of my quali- 

 fication for such a position, nor consequently comprehended better the 

 advantage of conducting my self-imposed duties in an unpretending 

 manner. 



About the beginning of the past year, these duties became excessively 

 irksome to me. I possessed valuable assistance in the friendly services 

 ever rendered to me by Mr. Piddington, Curator of the Museum of 

 (Economic Geology attached to our Society, and in the able support, 

 always freely, and kindly offered, by Mr. Blyth, the Society's Zoologi- 

 cal Curator, but the work was distasteful to me ; the mind must be in a 

 healthy and happy state to support with satisfaction a variety of self- 

 imposed labour, in addition to an onerous weight of ceaseless official 

 duties, and there are necessarily times with all men in which circum- 

 stances operate to weaken mental elasticity. I was, furthermore, a good 

 deal discouraged by the impossibility I was in of sending my Journal 

 largely to learned bodies, and to men of science in Europe. The Society 

 necessarily declined sending copies of it as from itself, while on the other 

 hand, if I, Secretary to the Society, despatched my Journal graced with 

 what would be to all the world a proprietary title as respects the Society, 

 I was guilty of bringing the Society into virtually the very position it was 

 desirous of avoiding, thatof identity, namely, with a publication which it 

 did not, and could not controul. At the same time, as Secretary, my duty 

 and inclination ran counter to my interest as Editor and Proprietor ; for 

 my anxious wish was to procure the publication of a volume of the Re- 

 searches of the Society for the satisfaction of the Members and for 

 interchange with learned bodies in Europe and America ; but the material 

 for such a volume was not forthcoming, as all contributions were for 

 my Journal. I could not refuse that promptness of publication, which the 

 contributors had a right to expect ; had I proposed to them to insert 

 their papers in the Researches as part of the contents of a quarto 



