TAnson, M.B., than whom a more competent curator could not be 
desired. These three sections of Associational work have become 
quiet but effective means for the spread of scientific culture. 
Members may do much to increase their utility by gifts of books, . 
plants, or scientific and antiquarian objects. In this way, things 
which have merely yielded pleasure and instruction to an individual 
possessor, may be made to yield like boons to the many. 
The Committee desires to draw attention to an alteration in 
the Constitution of the Cumberland Association, which has been 
brought about by the action of your representatives at the Council 
of the Union, and which will enable your Hon. Treasurer to effect 
a saving in the expenditure of monies. The basis on which this 
financial question has been arranged, may be thus stated. There 
are at the present time nine Scientific and Literary Associations 
affiliated under the shelter of the Cumberland Association for the 
Advancement of Literature and Science, the Constitution of which 
provides that, for the protection of the interests of the individual 
Associations, and for the proper government of the whole, each 
Association shall furnish two delegates to a general Council, and 
contribute to its support a capitation grant levied on the whole of 
the members of the County Associations collectively. It was, 
however, found by your Committee, that while reaping no greater 
benefit from the Union than other Associations, your Association 
was paying into its exchequer about twice as much as the next 
largest Association, and as compared with the younger Associations, 
three and four times as much. In its early days, when the 
Cumberland Association was a nursling, so to speak, and needing 
all the support it could obtain, your Committee did not feel called 
upon to suggest a more equitable readjustment of the capitation 
grant paid by this Association ; but as the Union grew in strength, 
year by year, it was considered that the time for action had arrived, 
and your delegates are pleased to report that the Council, after 
careful consideration, agreed to reduce the grant by fifty per cent. 
on the 151st and every succeeding member, not only of the White- 
haven Association, but of all the affiliated Associations. 
Your Committee feels that this Report would be incomplete 
without paying a tribute of respect to the memory of the late Rev. 
J. Clifton Ward, F.G.S., Rydal Vicarage, Ambleside, who, since 
its formation, has acted so efficiently as Secretary to the Cumber- 
