Hie Nineteenth General Meeting. 



305 



bound them together as friends. (Hear, hear.) Those meetings 

 were not only a source of benefit in their tendency to spread a regard 

 for preservation of old buildings — for they valued the old landmarks 

 of the land — but they were a fund of wealth to the country because 

 those . ancient edifices which enriched the country attracted from 

 foreign lands — especially from America — men who admired such 

 things and who had not in their own country such treasures as 

 England possessed. Those Societies were engaged in various places, 

 restoring beautiful and valuable old structures, and men were coming 

 from distant lands to admire those things which our forefathers had 

 committed to our keeping. (Hear.) His conviction was that if such 

 Societies had existed 200 or 30 0, instead of 40 or 50 years ago, 

 there would be a very much larger number of architectural and other 

 treasures in existence ; and he trusted that that Society and all 

 Societies having similar objects, would meet with all the encourage- 

 ment they deserved, no matter where they held their annual meetings. 

 (Applause.) 



In acknowledging the toast of the General Secretaries, the Rev. 

 A. C. Smith congratulated the members upon the prosperous state 

 of the Society, and upon the erection of a building at Devizes for 

 its use. He said it was very gratifying to observe that the spirit of 

 archaeology, and a love of natural history was penetrating into every 

 part of the county, and that there was great hope that the antiquities 

 of the county would be more carefully preserved than they had been 

 hitherto. (Hear, hear.) 



Professor Donaldson, in responding to the health of the visitors, 

 said that there was one sentence in the President's address which 

 touched him, and that was the allusion to the building which had 

 been taken at Devizes for the purposes of the Society. He was of 

 opinion that there was a great deficiency in the country of buildings 

 of that kind. He thought there ought to be in every county some 

 central place in which there should be a due representation in every 

 respect, in regard to the arts, sciences, literature, and antiquities of 

 the county. (Hear, hear, and applause.) If they went abroad — to 

 France or Italy — they found a civilising power in the districts which 

 was of great importance in the form of museums for the superior 



