338 * 



der Konigl. Preuss. Akedemie der Wissenschaften zu Ber- 

 lin. Juli 1840 bis Juni 1841. — By the Academy. 



The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for 

 1841 — By the Phil. Society of America. 



Proceeding's of the Zoological Society. Oct. 13. 1840 to July 27. 

 1841 — By the Society. 



Letter-Press to the First Part of the Natural History and Illus- 

 trations of the Scottish Salmonidse. By Sir William Jardine, 

 Bart. — By the Author. 



Ordnance Survey of Ireland. County Galvvay. — By His Excels 

 lency the Lord Lieutenant. 



Mondat/, 20f/i December. 

 Dr HOPE, V.P. in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. Report of a Committee on the Papers of David Hume, be- 

 queathed to the Society by the late Baron Hume. Com- 

 municated by the Council. 



The Committee to whose examination the papers bequeathed to 

 the Royal Society of Edinburgh by the late Baron Hume, has been 

 intrusted, in the view of suggesting what might be the most proper 

 and useful plan for their future disposal, consistently with the pecu- 

 liar character and functions of the learned body to which they now 

 belong, havinor proceeded to examine their contents with care, have 

 now to offer, though not without considerable hesitation, the views 

 that have occurred to them. 



Independently of some valuable and interesting autographs of Mr 

 David Hume, to be mentioned in the sequel, the important part of 

 this bequest, to which the attention of the Committee has been more 

 particularly directed, consists of a miscellaneous and very broken 

 mass of letters, which may, in general, be described as the Private 

 and Confidential Correspondence of that illustrious philosopher and 

 historian. Of these letters, about one hundi-ed and forty-five are 

 written by Mr Hume ; the number of those addressed to him is about 

 five hundred and fifty ; making a total of nearly seven hundred 

 letters. 



Mr Hume's epistolary correspondents appear to have been very 

 numerous, especially in the later periods of his life, when his literary 

 fame had been established, and he had become pei'sonally known in a 



t 



