8 
YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS' UNION. 
Excursions and Annual Meetings, large as they may loom in our 
minds, and much as they may interest us, are but means of 
bringing us together, of promoting an interchange of thought 
and opinion, all with the ultimate end of our publishing the 
results to which our investigations may lead us. 
The next step, taken after 1876, was the adoption of the 
prospectus of 1883, which did not affect the main lines of the 
Union's work, but merely laid down the various methods of 
procedure. 
It is interesting to mention that our system of government 
is modelled upon the rules and procedure of the British 
Association. 
These rules were so well drafted by the original founders 
that they have stood the test of many years ; and our own, based 
upon them, have worked equally well and with the minimum of 
friction, the great advantage being that the government of a 
scientific society is thereby put in the hands of its most scientific 
members. The modifications subsequently made in this 
prospectus have been but slight, the one which is perhaps most 
worthy of mention being that concerning our Excursion districts. 
The original prospectus of 1883 had a vague and arbitrary 
division of the county into five Excursion districts, which did not 
work well in practice; and a modification made in March, 1888, 
substituted the five vice-counties of Mr. H. Cottrell Watson's 
well-known scheme for recording the distribution of plants, which 
is also used by conchologists for that of the mollusca. The 
various modifications as regards the constitution of the Executive 
Council being merely questions of machinery need not be referred 
to in any detail. 
A feature of the highest importance in our history was the 
further development of British Association methods by the 
institution in the winter of 1886-87 of the first of our well-known 
Committees of Research, which from first to last have done so 
much to further our work. 
In this connection I cannot withhold our tribute of respect 
to the memory of our friend, Mr. S. A. Adamson, who did more 
than any one for the development of our geological work. His 
genial and enthusiastic temperament, his literary abilities and 
business capacity enabled him to accomplish much, and it was at 
his initiative that our Boulder Committee and Geological Photo- 
graphs Committee were founded. 
Both these Committees have done a large amount of work, 
and the contributions made by them to the British Association 
work have far exceeded those made by any other similar body. 
Of our other Committees, the Fossil Flora Committee, 
thanks chiefly to the labours of Mr. Robert Kidston and his 
Yorkshire coadjutors, has published a series of papers in our 
transactions. 
The Coast Erosion Committee has been the means of 
