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PROCEEDINGS OF NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETIES. 
ROCHDALE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
A Society has recently been established at Rochdale, Lancashire, under the 
above designation. Mr. John Roby, a banker in that town, well known as 
the author of Traditions of Lancashire, and likewise of a Seven-Weeks Tour on 
the Continent , a short time since signified his intention of delivering a course of 
ten lectures on the Linnsean system of Botany. The Society, desirous of render¬ 
ing these lectures more generally useful, requested that he would allow the public 
the option of attending, instead of confining the admission to members of the above 
Institution. The theatre was accordingly engaged for the purpose, all classes 
being thus admitted at a very low rate. 
The first meeting took place Aug. 1, 1838, and the crowded state of the building 
up to the concluding lecture, sufficiently testified the interest excited in the 
audience, and the pleasing mode in which the instruction was conveyed. A 
great number of diagrams and drawings rendered even the most dry and difficult 
parts of the subject easy of comprehension. 
When we state that more than two hundred drawings of plants, showing their 
minutest structure, and large enough to be distinctly seen in every part of the 
house, were exhibited, our readers may form some idea of the immense labour 
undertaken gratuitously by Mr. Roby for the instruction and gratification of his 
fellow townsmen. The audience, crowded to the ceiling, rose at the concluding- 
lecture, and gave a vote of thanks by acclamation. 
We can only regret that Mr. Roby has not hitherto been induced to extend 
the benefits of his labours ; having declined a request, from the Mechanics’ Insti¬ 
tute at. Manchester, that he would deliver the course in their handsome and 
capacious building. 
We now proceed to lay before our readers a brief summary of the lectures. 
They aim, it will be perceived, at novelty rather as regards manner than matter. 
A lecture, to be generally useful, as well as interesting to a mixed audience, 
must necessarily appear trite to some, and at the same time difficult, if not per¬ 
plexing, to others. Information which, to those who have made some progress 
in science, may appear useless, to others, entirely ignorant on the subject, 
often seems abstruse and hard to attain. Hence the difficulty a lecturer has to 
encounter in addressing a promiscuous audience, compared to that of a master or 
teacher who has the opportunity of dividing his pupils into classes according to 
their different stages of attainment, and who is thus enabled to give to each 
