OPENING OF THE NEW MUSEUM. 
275 
in the erection of the Museum will be continued in supplying it 
with material. Already Mr. Norrington has added most valuably 
to our conchology ; our good friend, Mr. Bignell, has enriched our 
entomological cases by over 1,100 specimens; Mr. J. Windeatt 
has given us a fine specimen of that curious " link " mammal, the 
ornithorhyncus, and we have had many gifts from other sources. 
Growth is the law of utility, the condition of useful existence, in 
Museums as in all other institutions; and if at any time by the 
provision of worthy material we outgrow our accommodation, I hope 
we shall not stand still, but have sufficient energy left to attempt to 
provide more room. 
We gladly welcome here to-day the chief magistrates and repre- 
sentatives of this great triple community, and I have to tender to 
these gentlemen our cordial thanks for their presence and assistance. 
We feel that we have not been doing a private but a public work, and 
that not for Plymouth only but for the whole district. It is the 
intention of the members of this Institution, as soon as the neces- 
sary arrangements can be made, to admit the public at stated times 
free, and at other times on payment of a small charge to defray the 
extra expense involved. We open our Museum therefore in the 
hope that it will supply a long-felt public want, and that the pro- 
gress of science and art in Plymouth and its neighbourhood may 
date from this day a new and abiding impulse. I have now the 
pleasure of calling upon the Mayor of Plymouth. 
The Mayor of Plymouth : As a member of this Institution now 
for more than twenty years, I may naturally claim to be very deeply 
interested in these proceedings ; but I accept this invitation to 
address you as an indication that your Institution desires still in 
the future to connect itself with the life of the town at large as it 
has done in the past. Looking back to the volume of Transactions 
published by this Society in 1830, I find that the editor, who I 
think must have been the Rev. Kobert Lampen, states that it was 
the object of the contributors to that volume to address themselves 
chiefly to those subjects for the discussion of which local facilities, 
or other circumstances, gave the members advantages not within 
the reach of their fellow-labourers within the same field of know- 
ledge. And looking over the valuable and interesting series of 
papers published by this Society since, I think we may say that 
purpose has been fully and nobly fulfilled. The members of this 
Institution have from time to time rendered most valuable help by 
