1864.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 233 



During the past winter your Council have permitted the Numis- 

 matic Society and the Montreal Literary Club to hold their meet- 

 ing in their rooms on evenings not specially devoted to our own 

 Society, and at a reasonable rate for fuel and light. 



Your Council would further suggest, and in accordance with 

 the amended act of Parliament, that the number of Vice-Presi- 

 dents should not exceed nine, and that the Council should also 

 consist of nine members. 



Your Council would beg leave further to state, that they have 

 received a communication from Mr. Leeming, calling attention to 

 the fact that the remains of the late Rev. Mr. Sommerville are at 

 present in the old Protestant burying-ground in Dorchester street, 

 and calling on the Society to assist, conjointly with the Cor- 

 poration of the Montreal General Hospital, the Trustees of St. 

 Gabriel Church, and a clergyman now resident in Quebec, for the 

 removal of the body to the Mount Royal Cemetery, and also the 

 Monument at present erected over his remains. Your Council 

 would therefore suggest that some action be taken in this matter 

 at as early a period as possible. 



They have also received a communication from the Board of 

 Arts and Manufactures, in which it sets forth that it has " in 

 its hands a considerable property, subject to a ground-rent, and 

 burthened with hypotheques so large as to consume all its 

 annual grant, and render the Board unable to carry on its proper 

 operations, viz., to increase and maintain its free Library, to 

 establish and keep up a Museum of Industrial Products, and to 

 promote the education of mechanics and artizans. 



^' The property thus held has been set apart for the use of scien- 

 tific and literary bodies who might wish to erect buildings for 

 their accommodation, having been acquired with a view to such 

 uses. In fact the Board has considered itself, in some sort, a 

 trustee for these other public bodies, either existing or projected. 

 But the members of the Board, hitherto disappointed of relief 

 from the Provincial Government, feel that they cannot continue 

 to hold this property for a much longer period, at a cost so great 

 as the abdication of their own functions under the statute, and 

 are therefore desirous, as speedily as possible, to come to an 

 arrangement — if it be possible — with your own and other socie- 

 ties, by which a building-site may be transferred to you on easy 

 terms, and co-operation secured between the Society and this Board 

 in promoting objects which we may have in common. 



