PROCEEDINGS OF THE PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
37 
In the Eighth Annual Report we find the Curator 
complaining of want of room for museum specimens, but 
there seems to have been no great inclination to get more 
cases or to solicit more extensive donations of specimens, till 
the Society had acquired permanent and more commodi¬ 
ous quarters. With this in view, the Council “took into 
consideration” on Nov. 15,1875, “ the propriety ef having 
larger rooms that might be fitted up as a museum,” and 
inspected a room in the Exchange Buildings in George 
Street that seemed suitable. Having reported this to the 
Society, it was agreed to take a lease of the room; but 
before this was done further consideration of the matter 
had led to broader views, and at the Tenth Annual Meet¬ 
ing (1876) Sir Thomas Moncreiffe reviewed the whole 
matter of the Society’s museum, pointing out the diffi¬ 
culties that lay in the way of depositing valuable speci¬ 
mens in the rooms occupied by the Society, and mention¬ 
ing a site which might be secured for a suitable Museum, 
It was not, however, till March, 1877, that Sir Thomas, 
still President of the Society, in his presidential address, 
brought forward the scheme which has resulted not only 
in the building which we are now gathered to open, but 
in that large and commodious Public Hall further up the 
street of which Perth may well be proud. The Presi¬ 
dent’s address and the discussion which followed ex¬ 
tend to too great length to be repeated here, but the 
essence of it is that the Society should not aim at any 
small or selfish scheme, but consider seriously the desira¬ 
bility of having a thoroughly practical educational Natu¬ 
ral History Museum, which should only be the nucleus of 
a future science school; and that in proximity to the 
museum should be a large Public Hall, the erection of 
which, though advocated by the Society, should be left to 
the community or a Limited Company. The proximity 
of the large hall to the Museum buildings would make 
the former available for lectures, conversaziones, or other 
meetings, for which the lecture-room of the Museum 
would be too small, and yet which for many reasons it 
would be desirable to have close to the Museum. In a 
word, the scheme was one of these broad, enlightened, 
and large-hearted ones sure to recommend itself to every 
unbiassed mind, to whom the good of the community and 
not of self was an object. 
The doings of the succeeding year are admirably summed 
up in the President’s (Sir Thomas Moncreiffe) address at the 
Eleventh Annual Meeting, and, in view of the many false 
statements which have recently been so industriously 
circulated, we are very much tempted to make some 
lengthy quotations from that address, showing the 
“kind” and “generous” way in which we have been 
treated by the Literary and Antiquarian Society. 
But (as will be presently mentioned) the public were 
afforded an opportunity of giving a decision on the 
merits of the rival schemes, and as in face of this the 
Antiquarian Society has persisted in going on with its 
pubb'cly-condemned scheme, it would perhaps be but loss 
of time to do so; and the misstatements to which we have 
alluded are best treated with the silent contempt which is 
all they deserve. 
As the outcome of the various meetings, it was 
resolved by our Museum Committee on 4th April, 
1878, to take steps to raise funds to carry out the 
scheme of a Museum building in Tay Street, and 
towards it Mr Robert Pullar subscribed £500 (con¬ 
ditional on a certain amount being raised); Sir Thomas 
Moncreiffe promised £100; and £100 had beeD promised by 
Sir W. Stirling Maxwell shortly before his unexpected 
death. 
Here the matter rested for a little while. Trade was 
bad, and money not abundant; and while no very active 
steps were taken to promote the scheme, still it was never 
lost sight of, but was being steadily matured. 
It would have been naturally supposed that the reso¬ 
lution come to by the Museum Committee in April, 
1878, would have ended all negotiations with the 
Literary and Antiquarian Society, but by a proposal which 
emanated from that Society, it was resolved to submit the 
whole question to a Representative Committee of the 
public for its decision. The meeting in question took 
place on April 26th, 1879,—Lord-Provost Richardson 
being chairman,—with the result of showing that public 
opinion was entirely ih favour of the views advocated by 
our Society. But the other Society refused to be bound 
by the decision of the Committee to which it had 
appealed, and so far as we are concerned, that Society 
does not again appear on the scene. 
In August of that year our Society received a very 
severe blow in the lamented death of its large-hearted 
President; and had not the way been prepared by the 
untiring industry and ever-ready tact with which he 
had for several years advocated the scheme of a Museum, 
it is but too probable that we would not to-day 
have been assembled for the purpose for which we are met. 
The enthusiastic earnestness with which, during the last 
few years of his life, Sir Thomas Moncreiffe had advocated 
his Museum scheme, was not, however, destined to be 
lost. Those who had had the privilege of working with 
him were in fact the more anxious to do honour to his 
memory by at once carrying out his plans, and justly 
deemed that his most appropriate memorial would be the 
