Annual Meeting. 29 



society, and who was president during nine sessions. Mr. Thompson, 

 who was a brother of the late Mr. James Thompson, of Macedon, 

 was a remarkably able scientific man, much ahead of his time. 

 He wTOte " The Natural History of Ireland," a monumental work 

 which was still the standard book on the subjects with which it 

 dealt. After his death, in 1832, the members of the Natural 

 History and Philosophical Society erected a memorial to him in 

 the form of an additional room added to the museum, the 

 " Thompson Room," in which were placed the private collections 

 bequeathed by him to the museum. Among this unique collection 

 there are three birds which were still the only Irish specimens, and 

 one — Sabine's gull — which is the first Irish specimen of the 

 kind. Fourthly, the Corporation would also secure the very 

 important ethnological specimens gathered together by Mr. G. A. 

 Thomson, a brother of the late senior director of the Belfast 

 Bank, Mr. John Thomson. Mr. Gordon Thomson was 

 a man of easy means, who was a great traveller. He 

 enriched the museum with articles from the north-west 

 coast of America, as well as from South America and 

 the South Sea Islands. He lived in a curious house — 

 now no more — on the Crumlin Road, modelled after a 

 South American residence, and known as " Bedeque House " — 

 hence the name Bedeque street. Fifthly, they would have the 

 Crozier collection of Arctic Birds given by Captain F. P. Crozier, 

 who afterwards perished with Sir John Franklin in the ill-fated 

 Erebus and Terror expedition, which left England in 1845. 

 Crozier was a native of Banbridge, where a monument was erected 

 to him. Quite apart from, and beyond, the advantages which both 

 the Natural History and Philosophical Society and their City 

 Corporation would gain by the new arrangement they had 

 mutually agreed upon, it was the public who would be really most 

 benefited, because in these days of the education of the people 

 why should such splendid collections be preserved only for the 

 few instead of for the many ? Placed as they would be ultimately 

 in a new modern museum, under the care of the Library and 



