474 



singular twitch and jerk in manner of which one was reminded 

 when it was stated that he died suddenly of apoplexy. Mr. 

 Conybeare lived at Batheaston, and so did Mr. Lonsdale, the latter 

 in a cottage just past the new chapel, known as Lonsdale Cottage. 

 Samuel Peace Pratt who had been mentioned lived in Lansdown 

 Crescent ; he was a gentleman of fortune who occupied himself 

 entirely with natural histoi^, chiefly mineralogy. Dr. Davis was 

 Dr. John Ford Davis who lived in the Royal Crescent, and was an 

 active member of the Committee of the Institution for a long 

 time. In his boyish days there was a gentleman whom he knew, 

 named Frederick Bakewell, who lived at Upsala Villa, Bath- 

 wick Hill, and who wrote for the booksellers ; among his works 

 was a treatise on geology. Colonel Page, the chairman of the 

 Kennet and Avon Canal Company, deserved to be remembered, for 

 to the early geologists he was very much what Sir W. Watson was 

 to the early astronomers of Bath ; at his death he left Lonsdale 

 £1000 from sympathy with his devotion to natural science. At 

 the conclusion of the subject Dr. Black exhibited some trap 

 pebbles and a portion of trap boulder from the immediate vicinity 

 of Edinburgh, with certain grooves and scratchings upon them 

 supposed to be indications of ice markings. Some doubt was 

 however thrown upon this supposition, as the scratches appeared 

 quite freshly done as if by the plough or some iron instrument. 



The fourth and last evening meeting was held on March 13th, 

 the Rev. Prebendary Scarth presiding in the absence through 

 indisposition of the President. The proceedings opened with a 

 paper by Dr. Hunter on Trade Fi-aternities, beginning with a short 

 relation of what is recorded of the Companies of Weavers and other 

 trades in Bath. These Companies assumed the monopoly of the 

 exercise of their respective callings in Bath, and the Corporation 

 affected to give a legal sanction to the pretension. The last 

 Company, that of the Drapers, was formed by a Deed under the 

 seal of the Corporation in 1752. In 1765 the question of their 

 authority was raised in a court of law, and judgment going against 

 the Companies, the whole system fell to the ground. Dr. Hunter 

 exhibited the Deed creating the Drapers' Company, which is now 

 in the possession of the Rev. H. E. Howse. It appears that at a 



