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ARMAGH NATURAL HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHICAL 
SOCIETY. 
OCTOBER 18, 1854. 
Rev. Dr. Romney Robinson, in the Chair. 
The Secretary read the following Report for the year 1854:— 
A stranger to our Society might ask regarding it such questions as these—What 
is the Society ? what does it attempt ? what is it doing ? 
It is considered that an annual report furnishes a proper opportunity for replying 
to such inquiries, affording to the members occasion to review the past, and to the 
Society a means of exhibiting anew its character, advantages, and claims. 
Union is strength, and men act the more cheerfully from acting in concert. 
Many objects may be accomplished by conjoined effort which baffle individual 
exertion. Proceeding on these principles, the members of this Society have united 
themselves together for.common purposes, casting their respective acquirements 
into a common store—a store which possesses this peculiar property, that the more 
largely it is drawn from, the larger it becomes; and the Committee cannot too 
strongly impress upon the members what, indeed, reason would suggest, and the 
experience of this and every similar institute proves, that in order to healthy, 
vigorous, and sustained action, there must be general exertion towards individual 
improvement and common progress. 
But are the objects in view worthy of such union? What is to be done? Hi¬ 
therto natural history and philosophy have been the fields over which this Society 
has sought to expatiate. In the one department the classification and arrangements, 
the uses and the beauty of the material creation come under notice ; in the other, 
the human mind turns inward upon itself, investigates its own character, and 
analyzes its own phenomena. In the one, the sphere of observation is so wide and so 
easily accessible that every one may occupy a place ; in the other, each inquirer has 
the subject of examination within himself. In the one, there is a variety like that 
of England’s Great Exhibition, where the mind was at first bewildered by the mul¬ 
titude of objects ; in the other, there is variety like that of the clouds, where the 
scene is ever shifting, yet this very variety restrained by specific laws. In the 
one, there is a rich universe without, and physical science bids us look upon it, to 
understand, admire, and adore its Great Author ; in the other, there is an universe 
of thought within, and the metaphysical inquirer needs no costly apparatus, and has 
no tedious waiting for seasons of observation. Each is a gold field where all may 
search and all find treasure—where no quarrel need exist as to division of territory, 
and in which, as elsewhere, patience is sometimes rewarded with the richest dis¬ 
coveries in ground that has been already explored. 
The Society has this year extended the sphere of its exertion. At the annual 
meeting, held 4th October, archaeology was added to its objects; notice of the pro¬ 
posal having been duly given by Dr. Riggs. There are, doubtless, minds between 
which and this branch of interesting investigation there is a strong affinity, and by 
their enlistment, an accession to our resources may be expected with confidence. 
And what, it is asked, has been done? To this the Committee are in a position 
to reply with unmingled satisfaction, that the progress of the Society during the 
past year, if not rapid, has been uniform and steady—an addition of literary and 
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