naturalists' societies. 161
This would necessitate a marine station, and much more elaborate provision
both of skilled workers and appliances. A little might be accomplished on
this higher plane, but the work immediately in front of them was faunistic,
and this was certainly well within the powers of the East Anglian Societies.
There was sometimes a great waste of energy in working independently, and
without reference to what other societies had done or might do. He should
like to see some arrangements by which each society should work in conjunc-
tion with the others, so that any subject taken up might be thoroughly
investigated, without the disadvantage of members going over ground that had
been already explored, or taking up questions that had been threshed out.
Each of the counties concerned had now excellent museums —but to insure
that the collections should worthily illustrate the rich East Anglian district,
long-continued systematic collecting was necessary. This work, especially the
marine dredging, &c., might often be costly and difficult. Combined effort
by the three counties might furnish funds and expert assistance which would
be beyond the means of any one of the societies working separately.
Mr. Cole also advocated the establishment of a quarterly journal of
natural history, geology and pre-historic archaeology for East Anglia, to be
published by the societies of the three counties. At present they had the
Essex Naturalist and the Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Natural
History Society, but he had not heard of any publication efforts in
Suffolk. The quarterly "East Anglian Naturalist" might be edited by three
gentlemen nominated by the societies. The main difficulty in the way of
such a project was the varying rates of subscriptions of the three societies, but
this might be surmounted. He was aware that in advocating the issue of
one journal for the district he was not in accord with the views of some local
naturalists, and it must be admitted that the "county" as a unit for local
work was yearly becoming more important, in consequence of recent political
and social changes.
Possibly some of them had read recently in leading newspapers letters
advocating greater attention being paid to what had happily been termed
"the buried history of Britain." In his opinion this most interesting and
instructive work of archaeological investigation could best be carried on by
the local societies. They had the machinery, but the funds were wanting.
Mr. Cole suggested that it might be possible for the British Association to
bring the matter before the Government, who could put it in the power of the
County Councils to allocate a very moderate annual sum towards the expenses
of such systematic exploration work in biology, geology and archaeology, the
prosecution and accomplishments of which would in any case afford object
lessons of very considerable patriotic and educational value, and sometimes
even confer direct practical benefits upon the districts concerned.
Prof. Meldola spoke of the advantages to be derived from co-operation
and combining forces, but admitted the difficulties that stood in the way.
The British Association had not been successful in its attempts to promote
federation among local societies, for the members of some maintained that
better work was done independently than could be done when a number of
societies were working together. There were two schools of thought—one in
favour of independence, the other in favour of co-operation ; and on the whole