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desired to disseminate in a greater degree than he himself could. 

 And to have withheld from hira anything calculated to assist his 

 inquiries he would have considered not only an injury to him but 

 an injustice towards mankind. " My cabinet," I have often heard 

 him say, " is of no use except for the purpose of disseminating 

 knowledge, and if I find that this end can be effected more readily 

 or completely by giving what I have than by only exhibiting it I 

 have no room for choice." He mentions as a proof of his having 

 acted up to his profession that although he was to the very last a 

 zealous collector, and lived in a country finely adapted to the study 

 of Geology, yet his cabinet was at the time of his lamented decease 

 almost empty. 



From the same article we learn that he gave considerable atten- 

 tion to Botany, and that he once planned, and attempted to 

 establish, a Botanic Garden in the vicinity of Bath. He was an 

 active member of the West of England Agricultural Society, and 

 early supported the practice of supplying the poor with small allot- 

 ments of land for cultivation in the intervals of their ordinary 

 labour. 



In the Fii'st Annual Report of the Bath Literary and Scientific 

 Institution for the year 1825, we find that Mr. Richardson presented 

 a collection of antiquities and 57 fossils from the neighbourhood of 

 Bath to the Museum which was then just being founded, and his 

 name frequently appears in subsequent reports as making donations 

 to the Museum. 



A tablet on the north wall of the chancel of the Church at Farley 

 Hungerford bears this inscription : — 



" Sacred to the memory of 



The Eev. Benjamin Richardson, 



for many years rector of this parish. 



He died Jan. 22nd, 1832, 



deservedly lamented 

 by all who knew him." 



The following is the tribute paid to his memory by Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, in his address to the Geological Society, 1833. 



" The Rev. Benjamin Richardson, of Farley, near Bath, one of the earliest 

 members of this society, was a man of great singleness of character and 

 generosity of disposition, and, as a cultivator of science, he was distinguished 



