5 
Science met in Belfast in August, 1874, under the 
presidency of Professor Tyndall, and that the 
meeting was in every way a most brilliant and 
successful one. Your committee, as intimated in 
last year’s report, of course threw open the Museum 
to all the members and visitors, a large number of 
whom visited your institution. The following 
gentlemen were nominated by your committee as 
representative delegates from the society to the 
General Council of the British Association for the 
Belfast meeting, viz.—your two secretaries, Mr. A. 
O’D. Taylor and Dr. Henry Burden, and Mr. W. 
H. Patterson. Your president, Mr. Murphy, had, 
in virtue of his office as president, the privilege of 
a seat at that General Council. Out of a surplus 
arising from the local fund raised for the Belfast 
meeting of the British Association, a sum of 
£48 8s 4d has been received by the treasurer for 
the Museum, having been kindly allocated by the 
subscribers for that purpose through the Local 
Executive Committee, and your society beg to 
return their best thanks for the gift. 
In accordance with our long-established custom, 
your Museum was once more opened to the working 
classes last Easter Monday, the 29th March, 1875. 
The result was as usual. More than six thousand 
of our artisans and their families inspected the 
yarious collections, and not the slightest injury 
was done to any specimen or to any part of 
the buildings. 
A list is appended to the present report, detail- 
ing the various donations to the Museum and the 
Library during the past session. The presentations 
to the Museum have been unusually few, but 
amongst them your committee wish to draw special 
attention to a fine specimen of the Emu kindly 
sent us by our valued and esteemed member, Gor- 
don A. Thomson, Esq., from Melbourne. Unfor- 
tunately, the skin arrived in such bad condition, 
from imperfect preservation and from having been 
packed with wet shavings,thatit cannot be set up; 
but your council do not the less feel the attention 
of the donor ; and they consider it peculiarly grati- 
fying to see that a gentleman who has in past 
