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Mexico, Bolivia, Peru "and Ghili; and three boxes of British granitic 

 and trappean . rocks have been arranged, whereby 40 additional 

 drawers have been gained for the fossil collection ; we recommend 

 that Mr. Woodward should continue' to carry out this arrangement, 

 and that the Australian collection be removed from the Cabinets, that 

 the fossil be separated from the rock specimens, and the former 

 placed in the Foreign Museum. 



Owing to the size of the boxes in which these rock specimens have 

 been placed, and the nature and close arrangement of their contents, 

 their weight is very great : your Committee are of opinion that some 

 caution will be requisite as to the position in which all such boxes 

 should be placed ; and that four, which now occupy the centre of 

 the floor of the upper Museum, should be immediately removed, as 

 that portion of the building is evidently not calculated to carry them. 



The donations made to the Society's collection during the past 

 year have been fewer than usual ; under a suggestion made by Mr. 

 Lonsdale, an account of the fossil shells so pi'esented has been given 

 in the last Numbers of the Society's Proceedings ; all the specimens 

 there recorded have been incorporated with the genei'al collection : 

 of these is an interesting suite of shells fi-om the faluns of Touraine 

 (in which the collection was deficient), presented by Mr. Lyell. 



As the present Report is the first which the Council will receive 

 from a Museum Committee since the retirement of an officer under 

 whose direction the Museum had continued for so many years, we 

 feel that we should be greatly remiss did we not call attention to the 

 very important nature of your late Curator's arrangements in this 

 particular department. 



During Mr. Lonsdale's connexion with this Society the bearing 

 of fossil organic remains on many points of geological inquiry was 

 of a kind which imparted to them a new value, and gave a perfectly 

 different character to many of its investigations ; it was towards this, 

 and especially in the vast subject of fossil conchology, that he ren- 

 dered most valuable services to this Society : in reporting, for the 

 first time, on the general result of these labours, we confidently state 

 that the assistance which the Museum collection can offer to those 

 who may consult it, cannot be too highly estimated ; by such it will 

 be found that our cabinets contain an enormous number of species 

 accurately determined, and that whenever the means at his disposal 

 would admit, he has not only presented them under various aspects, 

 but exhibited their geographical distribution, together with those 

 variations which result from age and local conditions. 



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