268 REPORTS. 



The new President then addressed the members, dealing 

 with the work of the Society and its aims. 



The retiring President, Miss A. L. Mellish, concluded 

 her address postponed from the Annual Meeting. 



Mr. A. Collenette read an abstract of his report on " The 

 Sunshine and Rainfall of Guernsey in 1916." This will be 

 found in these Transactions. 



This volume of the Transactions also contains the list of 

 words in the Guernsey dialect by Rev. R. H. Tourtel, stated 

 in last year's Transactions to be included therein, but which 

 was unavoidably omitted. 



Report of the Council for the Year 1916. 



The Council, in presenting this Report, feels that it must 

 congratulate itself on the work for the past year. In it was 

 inaugurated the first of what it is hoped may be the series 

 of more extended excursions in the future, when the anxieties 

 connected with the present war are at an end. The visit to 

 Jersey at the end of July last was the most ambitious 

 undertaking the Society has embarked on. True, there have 

 been excursions to Alderney and Sark, but these have been 

 merely day excursions, whereas the visit to Jersey lasted 

 a week. During that time the energetic members of the 

 Societe Jersiaise arranged that there should not be an idle 

 minute, and on the other hand there was no " hustle." There 

 was not a single contretemps during the whole excursion, the 

 weather was perfect, and the 19 pilgrims returned to Guernsey 

 more than satisfied with the visit. 



The Council could not help remarking the enthusiasm 

 shown in Jersey for the common purposes for which both 

 Societies have been formed. The membership of the Societe 

 Jersiaise is about 300, at a subscription of a sovereign; ours 

 is only 100, at a subscription of 7/6 per annum ; and the 

 difference in population is not large enough to explain this 

 disparity in numbers, and the increased difficulty of obtaining 

 members if the subscription is at a higher figure is well known. 



The result of this enthusiasm in the sister Isle is that the 

 scope of its activities are much wider than is possible here. 

 The Council feels that though this Society is able to pay its 

 way, should anything extraordinary come to light, such as a 

 Mousterian cave of the type of St. Brelade or St. Ouen, 

 it would be impossible even to initiate the necessary exca- 

 vation without an appeal to the outside public, and the result 



