lxviii PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
Proceedings is the only publication which has been issued by the 
Society during the past session. 
The following Office-bearers were elected :— 
President —F. Buchanan White, M.D., F.L.S., F.E.S. 
Vice-Presidents —R. H. Meldrum, John Thomas, J. Clacher, and 
James Stewart, L.D.S. 
Secretary —S. T. Ellison. 
Treasurer —John Stewart. 
Curator —Colonel H. M. Drummond Hay, C.M.Z.S. 
Librarian —James Coates. 
Editor —Henry Coates. 
Councillors —T. M. M‘Gregor, R. Dow, Rev. F. Smith, and James 
Morison. 
The President delivered the following Address :— 
Gentlemen,— Since it is the duty of your President to give at 
the Annual Meeting an address which, if it has no other merit, must 
at least possess that of being on a subject of interest common to all 
members, I was rather in a quandary when casting about for a sub¬ 
ject for this, the Eleventh Annual Address, which I have had the 
honour to give you. 
On previous occasions the Museum has afforded a subject which 
is of paramount interest to all members of the Society; but since it 
has been treated of from every possible point of view—past, present, 
and future,—that is a subject which just now is well-nigh exhausted. 
I have therefore selected another on which to discourse, but, after all, 
I find that I must make a very few remarks upon the Museum. 
In our Curator’s Report, the “ old, old story ” of need of space 
is reiterated; and if this need of room is felt by Colonel Drummond 
Hay, whose special department occupies by far the larger por¬ 
tion of the available space, it is felt a great deal more by those to 
whose departments the area allocated is quite inadequate. For ex¬ 
ample, consider the meagre space allotted to the Perthshire Geological 
Collection. That the arrangers (Mr. Henry Coates and Mr. Macnair) 
have been able to make such an excellent show reflects great credit 
upon their ingenuity and skill; but can the geology of a district em¬ 
bracing more than 2,000 square miles in extent be adequately illus¬ 
trated in a case only 13 feet long by 8 feet high and 9 inches wide? 
It is not only absurd to think so, but it is to be regretted that the 
skill and thought expended in making the most of such scanty 
space could not have been devoted to the arrangement of a properly 
representative collection in sufficiently large cases. 
Since I laid before you—four or five years ago—some ideas for 
an extended museum, circumstances have occurred which have led 
me to modify, in a slight degree, the scheme which I then proposed. 
The chief of these circumstances has been the success attending 
many of the courses of the University Extension Lectures. That 
these should be conducted in our premises is, I think, eminently 
