337 
to do so, but a few words of truth and common sense the 
meeting would probably give him credit for. He had over- 
heard a whisper from a gentleman in the room — " You 
haven't got all Huddersfield here ;" and again, " The 
misfortune of these societies is, that you can't make them 
popular." Now, undoubtedly, they could not make useful 
and valuable statements of scientific facts and records of 
observations or experiments as popular as the ballad of 
Chevy Chase, which, although highly amusing, contained 
very little instruction. If the object of the local committee 
of this Society had been to fill the room to overflowing, 
they ought to have provided a paper on the genius of some 
particular author. He meant no disparagement to litera- 
ture, for those who knew him would be well aware that he 
put in a claim to some interest in literary as well as scientific 
pursuits. If, therefore, they merely wanted to fill the room, 
they had better have had lectures on music, or have intro- 
duced two political partisans, which would, doubtless, have 
accomplished the object. The question was, not what 
would fill the room, but what would be most useful to the 
neighbourhood of Huddersfield, and particularly to the 
entire community of the West Riding. He believed that 
nothing which the society could do, would be more useful 
than the collecting and recording of real experiments and 
real observations. He should not have made these obser- 
vations, if he had not thought it possible that the local 
committee and others interested in the society might imagine 
that they had not done their utmost, because "all Hud- 
dersfield" was not present at the meeting. He thought 
they had no need to be discouraged, and he therefore 
begged to move a vote of thanks to them for their arrange- 
ments. 
The motion was seconded, and carried unanimously. 
The Secretary stated that at the next meeting of the 
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