ADDRESS. 
Read by the President , Mr. J. T. Hotblack, to the Members 
of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists’ Society, at their 
Thirty-first, Annual Meeting, held at the Norwich Castle- 
Museum, March 27th, 1900. 
Ladies and Gentlemen — The year for which you elected me your 
President has quickly come to an end, as indeed all years appear 
to do when one has reached middle life and is actively engaged in 
business. I felt at the time you chose me for this office that 
something of an exception was being made in my case, and that it 
was not usual for this Society to be presided over by one whose 
time was so largely taken up by commercial pursuits. We have 
many members with much leisure and great ability, and some few 
with most exceptional scientific attainments, and it is from them 
that your Presidents are generally taken. 
Yet I think it well that business men should be encouraged by 
such Societies as ours to think of something sometimes beside the 
state of the Money and Labour Markets, and the difference between 
buying and selling. To me, since my earliest years, it has been 
a constant delight to enquire into anything curious which I chanced 
to see, and I am now frequently able to recall things which 
I have seen and wondered at years since when I used to travel 
about the country for business both further and more frequently 
than 1 do now — for instance, a peculiar geological formation being 
mentioned, perhaps as close as the red chalk at Hunstanton, or as 
far as the granite rocks of the Western Hebrides — I am able to 
recall the time when being in their locality for business I was able 
to inspect and wonder at them without any cost of money, or time ; 
but I regret that, that same business has taken me from home, even 
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