ANNUAL REPORT. V 



Whitaker, who gave his vohontary aid to the Assistant- Secretary iu 

 the summer of last year for this purpose. A Ust of the Contents, 

 indicating the genera and subgenera, has been also prepared by 

 Mr. Whitaker. 



Mr. ^Vhitaker has also newly arranged the recent shells in the 

 Society's Library, and the Series of Paris Tertiary Shells in the 

 Upper Museum, according to Mr. Woodward's classification. 



The materials for a special series of Rock-specimens, mineralogi- 

 cally arranged, have been put together by Mr. Pratt, who has also 

 commenced their arrangement, and will proceed with this desirable 

 Collection as his leisure and opportunities permit. 



The Collection of simple Minerals (in the Society's Library) has 

 been enriched, through the liberality of Mr. Wheatley of New York, 

 by a beautiful series of lead and zinc ores from the Wheatley Mines, 

 Pennsylvania. 



The' additions to the Lower Museum — or Collection of British 

 Fossils — have not been numerous during the past year. 



The Foreign Collections, however, in the Upper Museum, have 

 received valuable additions of Fossils and other specimens from 

 Greece, Turkey iu Asia, India, Sarawak, Australia, Owhyhee, Nama- 

 qualand, and other localities. Nearly all of these have been placed 

 in their respective drawers. 



The extensive and valuable Collection of Plants and other Fossils 

 from Nagpoor still remains undescribed ; and the Prome Fossils, also 

 alluded to in last year's Report, have not attracted the attention 

 which is due to them from working palaeontologists. 



Indeed a wide and attractive field is open to Fellows of the Society, 

 who may have the requisite leisure and zeal, for the study, arrange- 

 ment, and description of the great stores of foreign materials which 

 the Society's Museum presents. The Nagpoor Series, however, has 

 a prior claim to attention both on account of its being the necessary 

 illustration of Messrs. Hislop and Hunter's Memoir already published 

 iu the Society's Journal, and as a sequel to Dr. Malcolmson's Memoir 

 on the same region in the Transactions. 



As the Assistant- Secretary is already overburtheued with his 

 multifarious duties, and as the funds of the Society do not admit of 

 paying for this labour, even if the adequate knowledge could be pur- 

 chased, the Committee hope that the zeal of some Fellows of the 

 Society will induce them to offer their services to the Council for this 

 important object ; whereby they cannot fail greatly to advance the 

 interests of Geological Science. 



The latest result of such voluntary labour in the Museum was the 

 working out, by Mr. D. Sharpe, Mr. Salter, and others, of the 

 South African Fossils, which are now arranged in the Upper Museum 

 according to their descriptions in the 4th part of the 7th volume of 

 the Transactions lately published. 



The interleaved copy of Mr. Morris's '* Catalogue of British 

 Fossils" placed in the Lower Museum to serve as the means of 

 cataloguing the British Collection, in accordance with an order of 

 Council in 1855, has not received further entries bevond those made 



