336 



An act of the Legislature was passed during the last year, exempt- 

 ing scientific bodies from the payment of parochial and other local 

 rates, whereby, in the case of this Society, a relief has been given, 

 amounting, on an average of the last three years, to the sum of 

 £32 7s. 9d. 



The Council have further the satisfaction of announcing, that the 

 late Mr. T. Botfield of Hopton-court has bequeathed to this Society 

 a legacy of £31 10^. (the value of his composition had he lived), 

 which has already been received : the Council consider it expedient 

 that this sum should be added to the funded property. 



The increasing number and importance of the papers communi- 

 cating original information to the Society ; the great drain which 

 the publicationof these papers would entail on the funds of the Society, 

 should the Transactions henceforth be invariably published in the 

 same form as the last six volumes of the New Series ; the necessity 

 in that case of long intervening delays between the reading of papers 

 and their publication, in order that, by the accumulated savings of 

 two or three years, means may be provided for defraying the cost of 

 a new volume; the overwhelming arrears of unpublished papers, 

 which in that case must necessarily accumulate, and might ulti- 

 mately remain unpublished, have forced on the Council the neces- 

 sity of considering whether by the adoption, to a certain extent, and 

 at least for the present, of some less costly and more expeditious 

 form of publication, as, for instance, by accompanying a very full 

 abstract of the papers read by the necessary figured illustrations, 

 justice might not in most cases be done to authors, and at the same 

 time the expense be rendered commensurate with the funds of the 

 Society. 



A specimen of the suggested new form of publication will be sub- 

 mitted to the Fellows, before any conclusive determination shall have 

 been taken on the subject. 



The Council have resolved that the Wollaston Medal be assigned 

 to the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, for his continued and effective ser- 

 vices in the cause of Geology and of Palaeontology, and they have 

 directed that the balance of the annual interest of the fund be as- 

 signed to Mr. William Lonsdale, to assist in promoting his re- 

 searches on Corals. 



Report of the Museum Committee for 1844. 



We have much pleasure in informing the Council, that the recom- 

 mendations we oiFered in our last Report, have been acted upon du- 

 ring the past year, and that great progress has already been made in 

 the arrangement of various portions of our large collection. Of the 



Tertiary era, — specimens have been received from almost every 

 portion of the British series, presented by Mr. Greenough, Mr. 

 Robert White, Mr. W. Card, Professor Henslow, Mr. S. Wood, and 

 Mr. Ball. 



A collection of Pleistocene Fossils from North America, presented 

 by Mr. Lyell, has been added to the Foreign Museum, and 



An extensive suite from Malta and Gozo has been received from 



