Annual Report.] 208 [May 3, 



The fact that the Society had no declared policy attracted 

 the attention of the Committee who settled the. terms upon 

 which I was to serve, and they requested me to draw up a 

 plan of organization. This was done after consultation 

 with various members of the Society, and the provisional 

 plan laid before the Council was, in all its essential features, 

 adopted; but at my own request, it will remain on trial 

 until sufficiently tested by practical application. The gen- 

 eral considerations, however, which furnished the ground- 

 work of the principles therein laid down, have been suffi- 

 ciently matured by our own experience and that of other 

 scientific institutions, both at home and abroad, to be 

 announced now. 



The history of the Society shows that it is eminently a 

 social organization, devoted to the cultivation and diffusion 

 of scientific knowledge. This is plainly stated in the ad- 

 dress of the first President, Mr. Greenwood, in 1833. The 

 publications and museum were then considered as necessary 

 parts of the design, the former as a means of self-culture and 

 correspondence with distant institutions, and the latter, as 

 the most suitable medium for diffusing knowledge among the 

 people. 



Though these objects have never been more minutely de- 

 fined, they have since served as the ground-work of all the 

 progressive changes in the administration of the Society. 

 The experience of the past thirty years, however, shows the 

 insufficiency of our means to cover the whole field, which a 

 practical application of such general principles embraces. 

 Even were this not the case and our funds larger than they 

 are, it would still be necessary to remember that we are no 

 longer solitary. 



There are six other institutions in our vicinity, five of 

 which have museums and are devoted to the cultivation of 

 Natural History. 



Cooperation in some definite form with them all is to be 

 anticipated, and in fact has commenced between this Society 



