The Inverness Courier subsequently published a letter from Dr Thomas Aitken, medical superintendent of the District Asylum, suggesting that a local society be formed, devoted to science and 'the chief natural phenomena of the neighbourhood'.
As constituted, the Club was 'to promote scientific study and investigation, and especially to explore the district for the purpose of inquiring into its geology, botany, natural history, archaeology &c.' These pursuits continue to this day, with digital projection having taken over from the colour slides which themselves replaced the Magic Lantern.
Over the first fifty years nine volumes of Transactions were published recording the talks given, sometimes several short ones in an evening, and the expeditions to interesting places, but rising costs seem to have checked publication in the 1920s.
In the preface to the first volume of the Transactions, it was noted that "the Members of the Society were at first mainly amateurs, devoting to scientific pursuits only so much of their time as they could spare from their ordinary vocations.
In the record of local observations, however, every effort has been made to secure accuracy, and the Council hope that scientific visitors to the district will find the volume useful".