Small in extent, scant in population, and spare in purse, as Scotland confessedly is, yet, in the cultivation of Archaeology she has in these modern times by no means lagged behind the other and greater kingdoms of Europe. This observation is attested by the rich and valuable Museum of Scottish antiquities which this Society has gathered together--a Museum which, exclusively of its large collection of foreign coins, now numbers above 7000 specimens, for nearly 1000 of which we stand indebted to the enlightened zeal and patriotic munificence of one Scottish gentleman, Mr. A. Henry Rhind of Sibster. The same fact is attested also by the highly valuable character of the systematic works on Scottish Archaeology which have been published of late years by some of our colleagues, such as the masterly _Pre-historic Annals of Scotland_, by Professor Daniel Wilson; the admirable volume on _Scotland in the Middle Ages_, by Professor Cosmo Innes; and the delightful _Domestic Annals of Scotland_, by Mr. Robert Chambers. The essays also, and monographs on individual subjects in Scottish Archaeology, published by Mr. Laing, Lord Neaves, Mr. Skene, Mr. Stuart, Mr. Robertson, Mr. Fraser, Captain Thomas, Mr. Burton, Mr. Napier, Mr. M'Kinlay, Mr. M'Lauchlan, Dr. Wise, Dr. J.A. Smith, Mr. Drummond, etc., all strongly prove the solid and successful interest which the subject of Scottish Archaeology has in recent times created in this city. The recent excellent town and county histories published by Dr. Peter Chalmers, Messrs. Irving, Jeffrey, Jervise, Pratt, Black, Miller, etc., afford evidences to the same effect. Nor can I forget in such an enumeration the two complete _Statistical Accounts of Scotland_. But if I were asked to name any one circumstance, as proving more than another the attention lately awakened among our countrymen by antiquarian inquiries, I would point, with true patriotic pride, to the numerous olden manuscript chronicles of Scotland, of Scottish towns, and Scottish monasteries, institutions, families, and persons, which have been printed within the last forty years--almost all of them having been presented as free and spontaneous contributions to Scottish Archaeology and History by the members of the Bannatyne, the Abbotsford, the Maitland, and the Spalding Clubs; and the whole now forming a goodly series of works extending to not less than three hundred printed quarto volumes.