4.38 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, 

 fexcept 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.) 



Le/mm 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 Swam 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 lakers *, who, too fashionable to follow in the track of 



* As some of your readers may not understand the meaning of lakers^ I 

 beg to explain, that tourists to the English lakes are so denominated in the 

 vicinity of these beautiful and picturesque pieces of water. 



