1898 - 99 .] 
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Meetings of the Society. 
way with the Government, he is by no means to he thought of as, 
on the whole, a disappointed or unsuccessful man. An expedition, 
which he organised himself, at his own expense, to the islet known 
as Christmas Island, has produced admirable results. The island, 
an upraised coral atoll, like those on which Darwin based his view 
of the formation of coral islands, is about 200 miles South of Java ; 
the depth of the ocean around it is of 3 and 4 miles ; its area is 
about 45 square miles ; it is covered by a dense forest, hut is per- 
fectly healthy ; and its temperature is so equable and perfect that 
it might seem to have been in the mind’s eye of the poets who 
have described the Islands of the Blessed. 
It has a special interest to the Biologist owing to being the only 
tropical island which, until some eight years ago, had never been 
inhabited by either savage or civilised man. Hence it was 
highly desirable to have a complete scientific account of its fauna 
and flora before the arrival of introduced species. Mr Andrews 
of the British Museum has spent a year on the island, and has 
brought back large collections; and naturalists are looking forward 
with very great interest to his account of his explorations and 
description of his specimens. The first set of the natural history 
collections made by Mr Andrews has been presented to the British 
Museum by Sir John Murray. 
The thread of my discourse takes me to another island — one 
with the exploration of which this Society has been intimately 
associated. 
The British Museum authorities have organised a Scientific 
mission to the island of Socotra with these objects in view — (1) 
to make a careful survey of the island, (2) to solve the question 
as to the origin of the people and of their language, and (3) 
generally, to add as much as possible to what has been already 
ascertained as to its geology, geography, ethnography, botany, and 
zoology. 
It will be remembered that Professor Bayley Balfour, under 
the auspices of this Society, visited the island in 1880 for the pur- 
pose of investigating its botany ; and that although his time was 
very limited, extending only to 48 days, the results were extra- 
ordinarily rich. It so happened that in the spring of the follow- 
ing year a German scientific expedition — known as the “Kiebeck 
