6 
years enriched the Belfast Museum by so many 
valuable gifts continues, when he has left Ireland, 
te cherish the same interest in the Museum of his 
native town. 
‘Your librarian cannot yet report satisfactorily as 
to the state of the department under his superin- 
tendence. Until a reading-room for members can 
be supplied, in conjunction with suitable book- 
cases, all that can be done is to preserve carefully 
in the limited space available the various scientific 
publications annually received, and to catalogue 
them. This is being attended to. If funds were 
forthcoming, the addition of such a reading-room, 
and of a lecture hall in the rere of the room where 
your collection of Irish antiquities is now arranged 
would be very advisable. 
During six months of the year, or part of them, 
arrangements have been continued by which the 
meetings of the Naturalists’ Field Club have been 
held within your walls. The Belfast Architectural 
Association also held their meetings in your middle 
room, and the Ladies’ Institute have had a course 
of lectures on Art, delivered by Mr. J. Mitchiner 
Lindsay, as well as a course of lectures on Botany, 
at present being delivered in your Museum by one 
of your council, Professor Cunningham. The pub- 
lication of the society’s “ Proceedings” continues to 
be attended to by Mr. Joseph John Murphy and 
Dr. Henry Burden, who jointly edit same. Under 
their superintendence three volumes have now ap- 
peared—viz., for 1871-2, 1872-3, and 1873-4. The 
last-named was specially pushed forward and pub- 
lished in time for distribution at the meeting of the 
British Association here in August last. The 
materials for the fourth volume for 1874-5 are 
now being put in order, and Mr. Murphy and Dr. 
Burden hope to have the volume soon published. 
Some progress has been made in the re-arrange- 
ment and naming of the various collections, under 
the continued supervision of Messrs. 8. A. Stewart, 
William Swanston, and Hugh Robinson. The 
foreign shells have been nearly all mounted and 
labelled; the herbarium of local mosses has been 
completed, and that of the British mosses is now 
