28 Annual Meeting. 



meetings in the present Museum buildings, the City Council 

 charging them a nominal sum for each occasion the large lecture- 

 room was used. When, however, the new Municipal Museum 

 was built, it was expected it would contain a fine modern lecture 

 theatre — such as the one in the Royal Dublin Society's Museum — 

 where not only their society but other kindred educational 

 bodies would meet. When, in time, all the specimens had been 

 housed in this new City Museum, the Corporation would give up 

 the old Museum again, and the Natural History and Philosophical 

 Society could then by letting the vacant old museum increase 

 considerably their finances, this additional revenue being spent 

 absolutely and entirely on scientific objects, as they were obliged to 

 do by their trust scheme, such as bringing able lecturers to address 

 them, or in any other manner that their scheme allowed, so that in 

 this way the public would be the real gainers. By the new 

 arrangement, now completed, their specimens would be suitably 

 housed, systematically classified, advantageously arranged for 

 teaching purposes, and properly and constantly looked after by 

 the efficient curator of the Municipal Museum and his able 

 assistant, while the Corporation would acquire an extremely 

 valuable collection which would be a fine nucleus for their new- 

 museum.. They would get, among many other objects, first, the 

 famous specimens of Irish antiquities, which they owed largely to 

 George Benn, the historian of Belfast, and his brother Edward ; 

 second, the unique collection* of North of Ireland fossils, pre- 

 sented, among others, by Right Honourable Robert Young, Mr. 

 W. Swanston, and the two MacAdams ; and third, the collection 

 of Irish birds brought together largely by Mr. William Thompson, 

 who for twenty-six years was a distinguished ornament of that 



Note. — This collection was generously augmented and arranged by 

 members of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, of whom Messrs. Professor 

 Ralph Tate, F.L.S. ; Hugh Robinson, M.R.I. A. ; S. A. Stewart, A.L.S. ; 

 William Gray, M.R.I.A. ; W. Swanston, F.G.S. ; and Joseph Wright, 

 F.G. S., were elected afterwards Honorary Associates of our Society. More 

 recently the Thompson collection was re-arranged and valuable additions 

 made by Mr. Robert Patterson, F.L.S., M.R.I.A., and some friends. 



