8 

 present. The number of the working population which 

 seeks admission is much on the increase: not fewer 

 than seven hundred persons saught and obtained gra- 

 tuitous admission on last Easter-Monday and Tuesday ; 

 their conduct on this, as it has been, with scarcely an 

 exception, on all other occasions, was orderly and de- 

 corous. Being thus brought into familiar and imme- 

 diate contact with well arranged Collections of the 

 works of Nature and Art, whether of the present day 

 or of ages which are past, cannot fail to have a most 

 beneficial and humanizing effect upon the mind of 

 even the least informed member of the community, 

 and forms not an unimportant feature in the means 

 for civilizing and refining the great body of the 

 people. 



The additions to the Museum during the Session, 

 whether by donation or purchase, though perhaps in 

 the aggregate not so numerous as those of last Session, 

 or possessed of such external attractions as to strike 

 the ordinary observer; are, nevertheless, both exten- 

 sive, and of a highly important character, and such as 

 the scientific investigator of Nature will readily recog- 

 nize and duly appreciate. Among those which call for 

 especial notice are the following : — During the autumn 

 a letter was received from The Chevalier Miche- 

 LOTTi of Turin, offering to present to the Society a 

 series of Tertiary Fossils illustrative of the Miocene 

 Period^ from the valley of the Bormida and the Su- 



