10 EEPORT OF 



Such are the objects to which the exertions of the Officers 

 and other Members of the Society are directed, and to which 

 they may now be fully devoted. The general arrangements of 

 the establishment have been at length completed, as far as 

 circumstances will at present permit. The various means which 

 have been for some years employed to excite a spirit of science 

 have not been without their effect, and the system of scientific 

 Committees gradually applied, as opportunities occur, to 

 different branches of knowledge, will doubtless have a still 

 greater efficacy in enlisting new recruits in the service of 

 philosophy. There are many Members who have it in their 

 power to give at least a portion of their time to these in- 

 teresting and useful pursuits : to its younger Members 

 especially the Society may look for zeal and activity in ad- 

 vancing its scientific objects, in satisfying the expectations 

 which its progress and conduct have raised, and making its 

 utility and reputation answerable to the pains which have been 

 bestowed upon its affairs, and the liberality with which its 

 expenses have been supported, and its collections increased. 



The DONATIONS which have been made since the last Report 

 to the collections of the Society, have been as numerous as in 

 former years, and of even more than usual value. The most 

 valuable specimen, perhaps, which has yet been presented to 

 the Geological Museum, is that which has been given to it 

 by the Rev. Christopher Sykes. It is well known to geologists, 

 that in the Stonesjield slate one instance has been found, 

 which, solitary as it is, suffices, if well established, to over- 

 turn the whole body of negative evidence from which it might 

 otherwise have been inferred that no terrestrial animal of a 

 high order had existed before the deposition of the chalk, and 

 places in a strong light the precariousness of all geological 

 propositions which rest upon a negative deduction. This 

 instance is the lower jaw-bone of an animal which Cuvier has 

 determined to be allied to the marsupial division of carnivora, 



