438 Natural History in the English Counties. 
council-room. Directly opposite the front door, corresponding folding doors 
lead into the theatre or lecture-room, 35 ft. by 44 ft. This beautiful room 
is ornamented by six Corinthian columns and four pilasters, supporting 
beams enriched by guilloche ornaments, dividing the ceiling into four prin- 
cipal compartments, in each of which are two rows of deep caissons; those 
of the two middle divisions are filled with ground-glass, through which the 
room is lighted. By a simple but ingenious contrivance, these lights can 
be instantly obscured by shutters, at the command of the lecturer, whenever 
any experiments require to be performed in the dark. The seats for the 
spectators, which are equally handsome and commodious, gradually descend 
from the level of the entrance-hall towards the table of the lecturer, situated 
opposite the entrance, and nearly on a level with the basement floor. The 
lower part of the lecture-room is rusticated, and the whole of the walls and 
part of the floor are in imitation of stone. On the right and left of the lec- 
ture-room, and communicating with it, are spacious apartments, 51 ft. 6 in. 
long, by 18 ft. 6 in. wide, for the collections in zoology and mineralogy ; the 
former containing a suite of nearly 10,000 specimens of British rocks and 
fossils, arranged in the order of their position in the earth; the latter exhi- 
biting above 2000 minerals, classed according to their chemical relations. 
At the back of the lecture-room, and connecting the two lateral rooms, is 
the museum for zoology, 44 ft. by 22 ft., in which the foreign and British 
quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, shells, insects, and corallines, which the 
Society possesses, are systematically displayed. These three rooms are 
lighted by plate-glass skylights, and are admirably suited to their purpose : 
they are at present only partially fitted up, as the funds of the Society do 
not allow of more being done. 
The front building has an upper story, containing three spacious rooms, 
one of which is allotted to the use of the keeper of the museum, and another 
to the valuable collection of comparative anatomy, the property of the cura- 
tor of that department, James Atkinson, Esq. The whole of the building, 
except the basement, is peeled by stones erected by Mr. Haden of Trow- 
bridge, and by Mr. Pickersgill of York. Preparations are made for lighting 
the whole with gas. A considerable part of the internal finishings have 
been executed under the gratuitous direction of Mr. Pritchett. 
The basement story contains a laboratory ; accommodation for the lec- 
turer, immediately communicating with the lecture-room ; a dwelling-house 
for the sub-curator; and a long gallery, containing the architectural frag- 
ments of the abbey discovered in the late excavations. A curious old fire- 
place, belonging to the abbey, is preserved in its original position, in one of 
the basement rooms, and forms a very interesting object to the antiquary. 
The room being necessarily nearly dark, a gas-light is fixed to throw a feeble 
light upon this relic, and adds not a little to the interest it excites. (York- 
shire Gazette.) 
Liium Martagon.— This plant, though not generally admitted into the 
British Flora, may be found in the appendix to one published by Dr. Hull 
of Manchester. I have a specimen from a wood near Kirby Fleetham, 
where it grows to all appearance wild. — J. E. L. Richmond, March 4. 
CUMBERLAND. 
Wild Swans on the Lakes. —'The queen of lakes, in our northern Tempe, 
Winandermere, or (as it is generally called), Windermere, and the neigh- 
bouring lakes, Esthwaite and Coniston, have had the honour of a lengthened 
visit from a party of /akers*, who, too fashionable to follow in the track of 
* As some of your readers may not understand the meaning of /akers, I 
beg to explain, that tourists to the English lakes are so denominated in the 
vicinity of these beautiful and picturesque pieces of water. 
