president’s address. 
208 
substances. Permanent as we suppose the everlasting hills, 
changes are incessantly at work in them, breaking up old 
combinations and forming new ones. As the earth spirit says 
to Faust:— 
In the currents of life, in action’s storm 
I float and I wave 
With billowy motion. 
Birth and the grave 
A limitless ocean. 
A constant weaving 
With changes still rife, 
A restless heaving, 
A glowing life— 
Thus time’s whirring loom unceasing I ply, 
And weave the life garment of Deity. 
I must say a word on the means by which the societies 
and field clubs in this Union have endeavoured to turn their 
time and resources to good account. I see that besides 
their periodical meetings for the interchange of opinion, the 
exhibition of specimens and the reading of papers, some, 
notably the Birmingham and the Peterborough Natural 
History Societies, have adopted the plan of the members 
preparing some definite book for discussion. Where members 
live within a reasonable distance of each other, this is 
obviously an excellent means of acquiring definite information, 
and qualifying them for the work of original research. The 
members of the Caradoc Field Club have for some years past 
offered prizes to the scholars of elementary schools for 
collections in botany and geology. I must admit that, 
although some good collections have thus been made, the 
scheme has not been widely adopted, owing no doubt to 
the fact that it involves the constant attention of some one 
to direct the efforts of the lads, and this requires more time 
than can usually be spared ; otherwise, where the services 
of such persons are available, they might profitably be 
expended in promoting habits of observation among the 
young and the extension of scientific knowledge. The 
splendid volumes published by the Woolliope Club on the 
varieties of the apple and pear, now completed, furnish an 
example of what valuable work our clubs can perform when 
they apply themselves to some definite object of local interest. 
It is in this, perhaps, more than in any other way that they 
have it in their power to promote the objects they have in view. 
II.—There are not probably in England many counties 
which furnish more varied objects of interest to lovers of 
Nature and of History than Shropshire. Its hills and valleys 
have furnished the chief materials from which the geologist 
has been enabled to decipher the successive changes which 
