PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. clxix 
been assured that in a few years, when some of the burdens have 
been removed from the available funds, there will be no difficulty in 
doing so. In the meantime, we are raising a fund to meet the 
expenses during the next five years, towards which we have already 
received several generous contributions. The Perth School Board, 
in voting a grant of twenty pounds, do so as “ Recognising the im¬ 
portance and value of the Perthshire Natural History Museum as an 
Educational Institution available to the schools for teaching purposes.” 
Applications for Educational Grants have also been made to the 
County Council and the Town Council, which will be considered at 
the time when such grants are disbursed. Amongst the individual 
contributors is Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who, in promising a donation 
of twenty-five pounds a year, writes that, of the Free Library, Art 
Gallery, and Museum which he presented to the town of Pittsburg, 
the most popular is the Museum. In connection with this he sends 
me a pamphlet giving an account of how it is managed, and draws 
my attention to a scheme of prizes which are offered to school 
children for the most intelligent account of a visit to the museum. 
The idea is such an excellent one that it seems worth adopting, at 
least by way of experiment. I shall be very pleased, therefore, to 
offer, say, three prizes for the three best essays on the various collec¬ 
tions in the Museum, the competition to be open to boys and girls 
attending any of the schools in Perth or Perthshire. Any essays 
should be sent to the Secretary, Mr. S. T. Ellison, 56 South Methven 
Street, Perth, before 31st December, 1898, and the result will be 
announced at next Annual Meeting. The title of the essay should 
be, “A Visit to the Perthshire Natural History Museum,” and each 
essay must bear the name, address, age, and school of the writer. It 
will be interesting to see whether the town children or the country 
children come out best in this competition. 
I now proceed to the subject which I have chosen as the theme 
of my address for this evening, namely :— 
THE PROGRESS OF NATURAL SCIENCE DURING THE VICTORIAN ERA. 
I have thought it would be appropriate to say something on this 
subject on the present occasion, as, although everything connected 
with the “ Record Reign ” became necessarily somewhat hackneyed 
last summer, yet this particular phase of progress hardly seemed to 
receive its due recognition. The progress of the purely mechanical 
sciences was everywhere abundantly enlarged upon, but, beyond one 
or two meagre notices, I have been unable to find anything of import¬ 
ance that was published at the time of the Jubilee regarding the 
advances made in the more speculative sciences, such as Biology 
and Geology. Yet I doubt whether, a generation or two hence, 
these latter will not rank as exhibiting the more remarkable and far- 
reaching results. Steam and electricity, it is true, have revolutionized 
our industrial and social conditions, but these may be replaced next 
century by other and greater forces of nature yet to be discovered. 
Evolution, on the other hand, if we accept it as a law of nature, 
holds good, like the law of gravitation, for all time. 
The subject is such a vast one that it is difficult to know from 
