16 REPORT OF THE 



the Museum aluiost entirely dependant upon donations, and 

 the occasional purchase of such fossils as its funds would per- 

 mit. But the railway now in progress to Scarborough, with its 

 branches to Whitby and Bridlington, besides passing through 

 the well known Oolite districts of Malton and Pickering, will 

 greatly facilitate the means of communication with the three 

 richest spots on the coast ; and in anticipation of the facility 

 likely to be thus afforded for obtaining the fossils of the 

 Yorkshire Oolites and Lias, a correspondence has already 

 been opened with the collectors of Mountain Limestone fos- 

 sils, a department in which, taking into consideration the 

 number of species known to occur in the county, the Museum 

 has been greatly deficient. 



Although the whole district of Yorkshire, from its numerous 

 fossiliferous rocks and varied physical phenomena, every where 

 offers materials for further research, yet there are two subjects 

 connected with its geology, upon which more information is 

 particularly wanted. These are the relations of the Tertiary 

 strata superimposed upon the Chalk at Bridlington, to similar 

 deposits, but more largely developed, in Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 and a better acquaintance with the fossils of that extremely 

 interesting bed on the coast, known as the Speeton Clay. 



Great accessions have been made to the Geological depart- 

 ment of the Museum during the past year. Several opportu- 

 nities have occurred, enabling the Council to enrich the col- 

 lection of Yorkshire fossils, in both the vertebrate and inverte- 

 brate series, at a moderate cost ; whilst the additions received 

 through donations have been unusually numerous and valu- 

 able. 



On the list of contributions which call for particular notice, 

 is the episternal bone of the gigantic species of land-tortoise 

 found by Captain Cautley and Dr. Falconer in the Tertiary 

 Siwallic Hills of Northern India, and which, from its enor- 

 mous dimensions, has been described by its discoverers under 

 the name of Colossochelys Atlas. It is to Dr. Falconer that 

 the Society is indebted for this acquisition, not less valuable 



