5 
1886 .] Chairmans Address. 
of artistic merit. It is too often the case that the funds of Scientific 
Societies demand that the cheapest and not the best shall be under- 
taken in the matter of illustrations. 
I commend it to some of the richer Fellows, if they might not 
see their way to giving or bequeathing to the Society a fund from 
which the Council might draw to assist in the careful and artistic 
execution of such illustrations as may be inserted in the Society’s 
publications. 
The magnificent and valuable library of the Society, which Mr 
Gordon informs me now approaches to twenty thousand volumes, 
has been acquired chiefly by obtaining the Transactions and Pro- 
ceedings of the other learned societies in exchange for our own. 
Foreign societies have always paid us the compliment of placing 
a high value on the work done by our Fellows, and published by 
us. As a consequence we have not only the publications of the 
great academies which have been long established in the great 
capitals and other cities of Europe and America, but contributions 
have flowed into the library from the remotest parts of the world : 
from Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Japan, and Java in the far east, as 
well as from our great dependencies and colonies of India, Australia, 
and New Zealand. Again, we get Transactions and Proceedings 
from the far west : from Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Ayres, Bolivia, 
and Mexico, as well as from many rising cities and towns in the 
United States and Canada. 
At every meeting of the Library Committee fresh proposals of 
exchange from Societies and Universities, not in scientific communi- 
cation with us, have to be considered. As education and enlighten- 
ment penetrate the various countries of the world, and extend their 
vital influences to new centres of population, new societies are 
formed, and, with the same desire for exchange on the part of the 
new societies daily springing into life and activity, the acquisitions 
of our library must go on increasing at a rapid rate, not only from 
old but from new sources. In addition there are the donations 
from Fellows and others, and the purchases which are made 
annually. Unfortunately, the space at our disposal is now so 
limited and inadequate that a considerable part of the library 
cannot be referred to or consulted. This fact cannot be too widely 
known, in order that active steps may be taken to provide a remedy. 
