1883.J 



President's Address. 



69 



report that the English party, under Captain Dawson, has success- 

 fully achieved its mission and has returned to this country. Captain 

 Dawson speaks very gratefully of the efficient assistance which he 

 received from the Canadian authorities and from the Hudson Bay 

 Company. 



The responsibility for the transaction of the ordinary work of the 

 Society rests with the Council and the officers, of whom the Pre- 

 sident is only one, and I may be allowed to say by no means the most 

 important, the heaviest part of the burden of the executive resting 

 upon the Treasurer and the Secretaries. But your President is, in 

 virtue of his office, a member of two public bodies whose functions in 

 relation to science are of great importance ; and I follow the excellent 

 precedent set by my predecessor in considering it my duty to acquaint 

 the Fellows of the Society with any occurrence, bearing on the in- 

 terests of science, which has come under my cognizance, as a Trustee 

 of the British Museum and as a Member of the Council and Execu- 

 tive Committee of the City and Guilds Institute. 



In the first-named capacity, I am glad to be able to announce that 

 the transference of the vast zoological, botanical, geological, and 

 mineralogical collections from Bloomsbury to the New Natural 

 History Museum is now accomplished ; and that it has been effected, 

 to the great credit of all concerned, with no greater mishap than the 

 fracture of a bottle or two. 



The advantages which will accrue to zoologists, botanists, and 

 mineralogists from the re-arrangement of this vast assemblage of the 

 objects of their studies, in such a manner as to be accessible to 

 every investigator, cannot be over-estimated. The Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington is, in fact, a library of the works of 

 nature which corresponds in value, in extent, and in the purposes to 

 which it should be applied, to the vast library of the works of men 

 which remains at Bloomsbury. 



In making this collection of use to the world of science by the 

 publication of complete catalogues of its contents, and of systematic 

 monographs upon particular groups ; and to the nation at large, by the 

 composition of guide books calculated to afford the ordinary visitor 

 an insight into the plan of the mighty maze of nature, the officers 

 in charge of the Natural History collections have before them a 

 task, the due performance of which, whatever their abilities, or their 

 number, or their industry, will tax their energies to the utmost. 

 It is in this way that, in the discharge of their proper duties, "they 

 may render services of the highest value alike to pure science and to 

 the diffusion of knowledge among the people, out of whose resources 

 the great institution to which they belong is supported. And I trust 

 that no mistaken view of the functions of the officers of the Museum, 



