W. DENISON ROEBUCK, F.L.S. : PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 15 
enclosure, and thereby preserved one of the breathing spaces so 
necessary for a populous district. 
There is but one drawback to our success, and I should be 
wanting in my duty were no allusion to be made to it, which is 
that, in spite of the considerable scientific success we have 
achieved, the Union has never received from the naturalists and 
the gentry of the county the full amount of support in the way of 
membership that we might reasonably have expected, and 
consequently of late years we have been crippled in our useful- 
ness by financial stress. With so many and diverse ramifications 
of our work, it is impracticable to avoid considerable expense of 
administration in spite of the severest economy. 
The county abounds in persons interested in the various 
branches of natural science, and well able to support the Union 
by becoming full members. 
Two concrete statements may be made in this connection. 
One is that, on referring to the latest part of our transactions, 
which is a most valuable contribution to its subject, we find a list 
of forty specialists in the subject, of whom no less than sixty per 
cent, are not members of the Union. Again, is it not reason- 
able to suppose that great cities like Leeds and Sheflfield could 
easily yield us a hundred or a couple of hundred members each, 
and other towns in proportion, instead of the very much smaller 
amount of support that we do receive? 
I should be exceedingly pleased to learn that my successor 
in the secretariate receives much more generous support in this 
respect than ever it was my fortune to receive, and I hope that 
these words may not fall on stony ground. 
One reference to our area of investigation, and I have done. 
One very potent cause, which has contributed as much as 
anything else to the success of the principle of federation 
with us, is the nature of the county which we have to work, 
and the resultant character of the Yorkshireman who has to 
work it. Federations have existed elsewhere in Britain, but 
with no great amount of success. Their constitutions have 
been too artificial, their boundaries and areas too vague, and an 
adequate sense of patriotism wanting. 
But Yorkshire as a county is unique in Britain, if not so 
absolutely, by reason of its extent, its position, and the wonder- 
ful diversity of its physical character. 
Indeed, any history of our Union for which time and space 
were adequate would be incomplete without a chapter discussing 
the subject of ** Yorkshire as a Field for Scientific Research," a 
most alluring topic. 
Not merely is Yorkshire our largest county, and, as old 
Michael Drayton sang in the Polyolbion, 
A Kingdom that doth seem, 
A Province at the least, 
To them that think themselves no simple shires to be, 
