3806 The Conversazione. 
education of the people, schools in which the people were well 
educated, but above all there was a museum or gallery in which 
antiquities were collected, where there was also a good library, and 
a room dedicated entirely to the productions of the artizans of the 
county in which the museum was situated. (Applause.) Nothing 
could be more instructive or interesting than to go through such 
museums, and they could not fail to be a great stimulant to the 
youth of the country as they inspected the work of their clever 
fellows in the district. (Hear, hear, and applause.) 
THE CONVERSAZIONE 
was held in the evening at half-past seven, at the Court Hall, when 
the President first called on the Revs W. C. PrenpErieate for his 
promised paper “ On the White Horses of Wiltshire and its neigh- 
bourhood,” and which proved to be a most able and exhaustive treatise, 
evidencing great diligence and research, as the members may see for 
themselves at a future page of the Magazine. 
Dr. THurnuam, F.S.A., remarked that there was once a white 
horse near Devizes on the side of Roundway Down, which Mr. 
Plenderleath had not mentioned; he was told that it was formed 
about the year 1845 ; but now it was nearly, if not quite obliterated. 
Mr. Cunyineton, F.G.S., then made. some remarks upon the 
geology of the neighbourhood of Westbury station, and exhibited 
specimens of ores, furnace products, and fossil remains from the 
Westbury Iron Works. 
He alluded to the remarkable advantages afforded to Geology by 
the numerous sections opened by the railway cuttings throughout 
the country. Many interesting Geological phenomena were shown 
during the construction of the Wilts, Somerset, and Weymouth. 
Railway, passing as it does over the chief deposits of the Oolitic 
strata, in a district singularly rich in fossil remains. 
The late Mr. Reginald Mantell, son of the well known Dr. Gideon 
Mantell, was appointed resident engineer of the line, and his paper 
on the strata and organic remains of the Branch Railway, published in 
the Geological Journal, Vol. vi., 1850, affords evidence of his ability 
asa Geologist. 
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