COUNCIL FOB 1858. 11 



tion may be increased, it is not probable that it will occupy the 

 whole of this room, and the galleries will afford ample space 

 for the augmentations of many future years. 



The Council wish to call the particular attention of the 

 Members to a part of the report of Messrs. Woodward and 

 Dallas, relative to the present stratigraphical collection. After 

 mentioning, the number of exhibited fossils, which amounts to 

 8,181, and its richness in some departments, they notice its 

 entire deficiency in others, as the Devonian corals and shells, 

 the fossils of the Bath oolite of the South of England, of the 

 fish palates of the carboniferous limestone and the " lias bone 

 bed " ; of shells from the magnesian limestone ; specimens 

 from the rich quarries of inferior oolite in the South of England, 

 and the Oxford clay of Chippenham ; the fossils of the gault, 

 and the greensand of Faringdon in the Isle of Wight. The 

 Council draw attention to these desiderata, in the hope that the 

 notice of them may induce the members of the Society to 

 supply what is wanting. At the late Meeting of the British 

 Association at Leeds, a plan was suggested for an annual 

 assembling of delegates from the diffierent Philosophical and 

 Literary Societies of Yorkshire, at various places in succession, 

 for the purpose of mutual communication and instruction. 

 York was fixed upon as the most suitable place for a general 

 meeting, at which the projected Union should be organized. 

 The Council gladly offered the use of rooms in the Museum for 

 such a Meeting, and expect soon to receive notice of the time 

 when it will be held. Should the suggestion of an annual 

 Meeting be carried out, it will, among other advantages, enable 

 the curators of different Societies to become acquainted with 

 the natural history of the district in which the meeting is held, 

 and with the contents of each other's Museums; and by an 

 interchange of specimens to supply the deficiencies of one from 

 the superabundance of another. 



Of the £1000 which it was proposed to raise for building 

 and fitting up the new room, £893 has been subscribed, and 

 this sum will be exhausted by the expences already incurred. 

 It is much to be desired that at least the amount originally 

 contemplated should be raised : the fitting up of the lower 



