174 
PROCEEDINGS OP THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE. 
Of the little band of men (eleven in number) who in the year 
1863 joined themselves together under the designation of the 
Scientific Association of Trinidad with a view to the encourage- 
ment of the cultivation of natural knowledge three only remain. 
Of these one left us some twenty-five years ago for another 
Colony. Another has long ago retired altogether from active 
life and the third who is now before you has but little energy or 
physical ability left for the prosecution of study. Many others 
of the most prominent men in the Island who took interest more 
or less in, or at least wished well to, scientific pursuits afterwards 
joined the Association, but only a few of these still survive. 
Under these circumstances I have to ask your indulgence for 
coming before you with a very imperfect paper not upon a 
scientific subject but rather having reference to the means of 
promoting the cultivation of knowledge or the study of the 
causes and effects of the natural phenomena which form our 
surroundings. 
Within these walls are stored copies of the printed Proceedings 
of the Scientific Association. Although it may not be possible 
to get a complete set of these Proceedings (the bound copy 
which the Association intended to preserve for its own use hav 
mg long since disappeared) yet a good many of the papers are 
still procurable Whilst Secretary of this Victoria Institute I 
got together and had bound a nearly complete copy and of most 
of the parts copies are still in stock. Unfortunately one part 
s entirely missing and this one contains the first papers published 
here about the Ramie Plant. In mv own rniwf^ puousnea 
I have more than one complete «et of the- w ® ooks 
Scientific Association. P the P ubllcatlona of the 
•*««•*• A “»»- 
m obtaining the permission of the Association^ iT eat dlfficult y 
in print of any of its Proceedings a tion for the appearance 
time to time that I eot Co ' lse( l uc,lU y it was only from 
these was one of Dr. Leotaud’s entitled ? t a ? ) ers P rin t e d. Among 
some two or three papers bv me U ^ocolat.” Besides 
Hill of Jamaica on the Preparation of M 61 ? P a P. ers b J Hichard 
Dr. Mitchell on a MegassiS Z t ** Me "k ^./by 
Law, entitled “Suggestions how to p C ^ ai ' one by Thomas 
Estate in Cocoa "for which there was To tre^ T* cultivate an 
edition was soon exhausted. This pmer w demand that the 
use to the Cocoa planter, though ah the v,V 6Vldentl y of practical 
author may not have been tenable W§ P ro P°unded by the 
