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power to state that a very liberal proposal has been made to them 
by Mr. Wilde, stating his willingness to undertake the task of ar- 
ranging and cataloguing the articles in the Museum, and laying 
before the Council an account of the plan upon which he proposes 
to perform this work. This proposal, which has been approved of 
by the Council, is to be found in their Minutes; and an estimate 
of the probable cost will be laid before you to-night. Should you 
approve of it, we have every reason to hope that this important work 
will be executed without further delay. Some difficulty has arisen 
from the request formerly made by the Board of Works,—that 
their contributions might be kept separate from others; but we 
have reason to hope that this request, which would render impossi- 
ble a scientific arrangement of our Museum, will not be insisted on. 
Meanwhile, it will be interesting to the Academy to learn that 
the work has already made some progress. 
The stone articles have been arranged and classified. 106 en- 
gravings have been drawn on wood; twenty-five are already cut 
and in the printers’ hands; and the first sheet of the Catalogue is 
in type. 
The Council have entered upon the task of arranging and clas- 
sifying the By-Laws, with a view to their being rendered more gene- 
rally intelligible to the Members of the Academy. They have no 
doubt that this subject will be taken up by the new Council, and 
that the result of their labours will be shortly laid before you. 
An important modification has been made in the law for pro- 
moting rotation on the Council. By this change the Vice-Presidents 
have been subjected to the rule which declares it expedient that the 
senior Member of each Committee should be removed; and it has 
been provided that this rule shall not take effect in any Committee 
in which a natural vacancy occurs. 
Large additions have been made to the Library during the past 
year both by donation and purchase,—chiefly in the department of 
Irish History and Literature. The number of donations has been 
unusually large, including, as the Academy will remember, a va- 
luable gift from the widow of the late R. Hitchcock, Esq. 
The work of placing and cataloguing the printed books in the 
Library is now so far finished, that the south wall book-cases of the 
Gallery alone remain to be done. The Council therefore hope to 
