useful service at once a source of inspiration and of help in carrying 

 on what may be called the machinery of the Society. Mr. Ridley 

 came at a very critical time, in 1890. He took up the Honorary 

 Secretaryship in the same year and if Bishop Hose was the mam- 

 spring of the Society, Mr. Ridley was certainly the escapement, and 

 with his colleague Dr. Hanitsch, still our honorary treasurer, has 

 keut us going to this day. Many useful contributions to the Journal 

 have come in from Scientists of " the neighbouring countries " — 

 Sarawak, especially, but of late years the multiplication of depart- 

 mental journals, while no doubt gratifying to the editors and 

 writers, has diffused energy and made much useful knowledge less 

 accessible than it would be if published in a Journal with editions of 

 500, to which the Journal of the R. A. S. (Straits Branch) has now 

 attained. If all the writings of all the savants were concentrated, 

 the issue of our Journal could be made regular, of fair dimensions, 

 and of more general interest. With the passing of the Map, the 

 Journal becomes increasingly important to the Society, and more 

 and more valuable as a record. 



This subject of " record " brings me to a matter which was last 

 under consideration in 1914 — -the forming of a collection of photo- 

 graphic records. Nothing has yet been done in this respect. Many 

 of our members must have prints and negatives of interest in our 

 brief-lived community. The questions of permanency of interest 

 and of the record are not easily solved but to my mind a useful 

 field lies open to the Society, and a small Photographic Records 

 committee of members skilled in the u dark " art could probably 

 devise a means of making the Society's Library a valuable and 

 permanent record of the times and useful to the generations that 

 come after us. 



Tim* does not permit me to deal with any history of the 

 financial or other machinery of the Society. And my own convic- 

 tion is that no good organisation in the Straits languishes for lack 

 of funds as long as its members are keen. We have had iC downs " — 

 as when Mr. Ridley took charge, and " ups " as when Dr. Galloway 

 secured a large number of new members some few year? ago. Our 

 chief income, now that the Map has passed into other hands, pro- 

 fessional hands, must be Members Subscriptions, and a careful eye 

 must be kept on the list, so that losses by retirement on departure 

 from the Colony may be made good by new additions. The life of 

 the Society depends, however, upon the spirit which animates its 

 members. The practice of permitting new members to purchase 

 back copies of the Journal at a very small price would not only 

 convert locked-up capital into liquid assets, but would stimulate the 

 interest of new comers, inform them somewhat of what has been 

 done in the past, indicate directions in which their work for the 

 Society might lie, and secure members to carry on the ideals of the 

 founders and early members of the Society, which may be lost sight 

 •of with a comfortable bank balance and an efficient working 

 machine. IThe Society, I conceive it, will be judged not by the 

 machinery, but by the results. One wants to concentrate all scien- 



