6 



friends in prosecuting the plan to a successful issue : 

 the Council reccommend also that special contributions 

 be solicited for this object. 



The additions to your Museum during the year have 

 exceeded in number and importance those of any 

 former year, and your Council would especially notice 

 a large and curious collection of publications, prin- 

 cipally the production of local talent, or otherwise 

 having reference to the Town and neighbourhood ; 

 these, as well as 200 specimens in various branches of 

 natural history, have been chiefly presented by Mr. 

 Ripley, whose liberality and practical zeal in the 

 Society's cause your Council have on this, as on 

 many former occasions, gratefully to acknowledge. 



The following pecuniary and other donations also 

 call for the Society's especial acknowledgements : — 

 viz., £10 from Robert Stephenson, Esq., M.P., and 

 £2 through Mr. Ripley, from Richard Clapham, 

 Esq., of Austwick Hall. 



The donation of Mr. Stephenson was for the pur- 

 chase of books of reference ; and the amount has 

 been judiciously expended by Mr. Simpson in se- 

 curing the works mentioned in the list of donations. 



Your Council trust these may be the nucleus of 

 a library of reference, and that it may be in the 

 power of the Society to make additions from time to 

 time in this department of their collection, which has 

 been hitherto, from pecuniary necessities, greatly neg- 

 lected. 



