Report. 271 



favour of the Society of £251 15«. lOi. (including £150 invested 

 in Consols), being an increase of £12 145. 5fi?. in the year, this 

 increase being more than made up by the balance, £1S 4*. 6</., 

 handed over to the Society by the Local Committee in respect of 

 the Malraesbury Meeting. 



" During the last year two more numbers of the Magazine have 

 been issued, the twentieth volume having been completed and the 

 twenty-first begun. Of the value of these publications it does not 

 become the Editor to speak, but it is hoped that they are (thanks to 

 many able and valued contributors) not inferior to the Magazines 

 of kindred Societies in other counties. 



" This has been an eventful year of work for the Society. 



" The threatened desecration of the honoured precincts of Stone- 

 henge, by the * Bristol and London and South Western Junction 

 Railway,* which proposed to cut through the Avenue and Cursus, 

 aroused the active interference of the Society in January last ; and 

 by stirring up the * Society of Antiquaries ' and the ' Archaeological 

 Institute of Great Britain,' to protest and petition Parliament ; and 

 by appealing to every Member of the House of Commons (wherein 

 they were cordially supported by most of the County and Borough 

 Members of Wiltshire) : and especially by the active opposition of 

 the former and present Presidents of our Society (Sir John Lubbock, 

 Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, and Mr. Story Maskelyne,) the injury 

 contemplated was prevented, and the line of railway averted from 

 its proposed course. 



"Another railway (the 'Pewsey, Salisbury, and Southampton 

 Railway,') also threatened to invade * Vespasian's Camp,' near 

 Amesbury, and the ' Durrington Walls ' ; but the timely interference 

 and energetic remonstrances of our President (Mr. Story Maskelyne) 

 in Parliament, preserved those relics of antiquity from such pro- 

 fanation. 



" We come now to the ' Siourhead Collections' which — as is well 

 known — have been lately brought into the market : and which (as 

 being of the greatest value in the county where they were collected 

 and to which they refer), your Committee immediately made every 

 effort to secure. A general appeal was made to the Members of the 



T 2 



