Annual Meeting. 27 



museum buildings worthy of the city in which such a joint 

 collection would ultimately find a home. Now, in order thai 

 their society could place officially their collection at the disposal of 

 the Corporation, acting on the authority of their legal adviser. Sir 

 Charles Brett, they had held two special meetings of the council and 

 a special meeting of the society (24th September, 1909), at all of 

 which a resolution was passed authorising the council of the 

 society to apply to the Commissioners of Charitable Donations 

 and Bequests for Ireland for powers to transfer their Museum 

 Specimens to the Corporation. As a result, after full and careful 

 consideration, the Charitable Commissioners allowed an alteration 

 to be made in the scheme under which the Natural History and 

 Philosophical Society was governed, with the understanding that 

 the details of the proposed agreement between the society and the 

 Belfast Corporation were to be submitted to the Commissioners 

 for final approval. After further negotiations, at a special 

 meeting of the society, held on 23rd March, 1910, the resolution 

 quoted in the annual report was, after discussion, passed 

 unanimously. The Charitable Commissioners having finally 

 approved of this arrangement, the deed of gift embodying this 

 resolution conveying the collection to the Belfast Corporation, was 

 duly executed on 27th July, 1910, and the lease of the Museum 

 premises to the Belfast Corporation was also signed on the same 

 occasion. During all these protracted negotiations the greatest 

 care had been taken to consult the society, to act with the 

 approval of their legal adviser, Sir Charles Brett, and, finally, to 

 submit everything over which they had authority to the Charitable 

 Commissioners. He would also like to emphasise the extreme 

 fairness shown by those actfng for the Corporation in all these 

 transactions. The condition of matters at present was that the 

 City Council had taken from them the old Museum, where the 

 Curators of the Municipal Museum were at present cataloguing 

 the specimens, and they were paying the society a rent for it — 

 mutually arranged — ,while the Belfast Natural History and 

 Philosophical Society would continue as hitherto to hold their 



