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NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
THE YORK REPORT OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
Earty in April we received the York Report of the British 
Association, which includes a summary of the work accomplished 
at the seventy-sixth meeting of the Association.. It contains not 
quite as many pages as usual, but is nevertheless a valuable 
record of the progress of science during the twelve months 
preceding the York Meeting. The volume contains the various 
presidential addresses, reports of committees, abstracts of 
papers read at York, etc., etc. Those of particular interest 
to northern readers were printed in this journal for September 
last.* A perusal of this report, it must be confessed, means. 
that one meets with matter which was well published in various. 
places seven months ago! Seeing that all the presidential 
addresses, reports of the various committees’ investigations, 
abstracts of papers, etc., etc., were in type and circulated in 
August last, and that such papers as were not ready had to be 
in the secretary’s hands within a few days after being read, it 
is difficult to understand why it should take eight months to 
arrange the pages in order and put a cloth cover on them. 
Surely some means could be devised for the more prompt 
appearance of these volumes. 
LOCAL v. GENERAL MUSEUMS. 
From the February issue of the ‘Museum Gazette’ it is evident 
that the writer in that journal is more in accord with our own 
opinion of the value of local museums than was apparent by a 
perusal of his first note on that subject, which we noticed in the 
February ‘ Naturalist.’ We do not confine the word ‘local’ to 
those collections ‘obtained within a radius of five miles from 
the Parish Church,’ nor did we ‘draw on our imagination’ in 
citing certain local museums. And we hope we are able to. 
distinguish between a local and a general museum. We should 
call the Driffield Museum a typical example of the former, as it 
is devoted exclusively to the geology, and antiquites, of a definite 
geographical area, the Yorkshire Wolds. The Hospitium at 
York—devoted to the antiquites of that ancient city—is another, 
‘though it is no fault of ours that the writer in the ‘Museum 
Gazette’ has never heard of it. The Selby Museum may be 
taken as a typical general museum, on a small scale. 
SU eget Seber Os ee eee ee 
* Several at greater length than they appear in the report just to hand. 
1907 May 1. 
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