334 



what were the many unsuccessful attempts to establish an institu- 

 tion and museum for Bath will find some reference to the subject 

 in the Rev. J. Hunter's paper on " The Connection of Bath with the 

 Literature and Science of England," and a Note, p. 98, vol ii., 

 " Warner's Literary Recollections." The specimens which Mr. 

 Lonsdale presented were all carefully mounted and labelled in his 

 own remarkably clear and neat handwriting, and I am glad that no 

 attempt has been made to change the tablets. They have an 

 historical value. They are interesting as souvenirs of Lonsdale's 

 connection with Bath, and the names themselves mark a stage in 

 the progress of Geological Science. Whether it was an innate love 

 of method, or whether it was the result of military discipline, I 

 cannot say, but no one can fail to be struck with the regularity and 

 order impressed on everything to which Lonsdale put his hand. 

 We see it in the uniform arrangement of the tablets in the 

 Institution. The same is traceable in the work which he did sub- 

 sequently for the Geological Society of London, and the same spirit 

 was evinced in the condition of his papers and cases of fossils which 

 were opened after his death. Mr. Stoddart, of Bristol, showed me 

 some of the boxes which were bequeathed to him, and we were both 

 much struck with the orderly method in which everything was 

 arranged ; a great contrast to what is frequently called, as au 

 excuse for slovenliness, " literary confusion." 



The Second Report of this Institution shows that a great effort 

 was made not only to establish a Museum on a permanent basis, 

 but to place the different departments in the hands of gentlemen 

 who were well qualified and had leisure for the task to act as 

 honorary curators. Mr. Lonsdale was appointed tlie first honorary 

 curator of the Natural History department of the Museum. At 

 p. 14 of this Second Report we find that he was specially thanked. 

 He remained energetically working at the establishment and 

 arrangement of the Museum until 1829. I have been told by three 

 or four people who knew him that he used to walk in from 

 Batheaston to the Institution quite early in the morning, when 

 light permitted, often as early as six o'clock, and that he would 

 steadily work the whole day through with no voluntary interrup- 

 tion whatever, not even for refreshment, a few biscuits while 



