ANNUAL REPORT. Ill 



which they are well-aware the value and importance of the Museum 

 must in a great measure be lost. 



It will be remembered that it was stated in the Annuat Report of 

 last year that the Council had resolved that the balance of the pro- 

 ceeds of the Donation Fund should be appropriated to making avail- 

 able to science the fossils which had been received from the Cape of 

 Good Hope in 1844 from Mr. Geddes Bain, and that a Committee 

 was appointed to carry out this object. A portion of the sum placed 

 at their disposal has been accordingly expended ; and the Committee 

 having reported that they did not recommend any further expendi- 

 ture on the fossils in question, the Council have resolved that the 

 remaining portion of the Award (amounting to ^27 2*.) be granted 

 to M. Alcide d'Orbigny, for the purpose of aiding him in the pub- 

 lication of his * Paleontologie Fran9aise,' on account of the value of 

 that work to British geologists. 



In conclusion, they have to announce that they have awarded the 

 Wollaston Palladium Medal for the present year to Mr. Joseph Prest- 

 wich, jun., for his papers communicated to the Geological Society of 

 London, and more especially for those relating to the tertiary deposits 

 of the London and Hampshire districts ; and that they have resolved 

 that the balance of the proceeds of the Donation Fund for the pre- 

 sent year be granted to Mr. Lonsdale, in aid of the publication of 

 his work on Fossil Corals. 



Report of the Museum and Library Committee. 



No important addition has been made to the British Collection 

 since the last Annual Report, and the arrangement remains in the 

 same condition as at that period, with the exception of a consider- 

 able number of specimens of the Azoic Rocks which have been re- 

 moved from the drawers. 



The Foreign Rock Specimens are in progress of examination and 

 re-arrangement by a Committee appointed for that purpose, with the 

 view of admitting of the exhibition of a greater number of the Fo- 

 reign Organic Remains. As the labours of that Committee are not 

 yet concluded, it is unnecessary to offer any further remarks on that 

 subject. 



Library Report. 



In the course of the last year the Library has been increased by 

 the donation of upwards of 150 volumes and pamphlets; among 

 these donations may be noted, as especially valuable, more than 

 100 Charts and Plans and Nautical works published by the Depot 

 de la Marine of France ; Hermann von Meyer's work on the Saurians 

 of the Muschelkalk ; the Palaeontology of New York, presented by 

 the State of New York ; Memoirs, Maps and Sections of the Geolo- 

 gical Survey of Great Britain; Haidinger's Report on the Proceed- 

 ings of the Friends of Natural Science in Vienna ; the Physical Atlas 

 by Berghaus and Johnston, presented by J. W. Johnston, Esq. ; the 

 Annales des Mines, completing our series to the present time ; and 



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