Annual Meeting, 27 



present taken to arrange for the provision of museum buildings 

 worthy of the city in which the joint collections will find a home. 

 Now, in order that their Society could officially place their collection 

 at the disposal of the Corporation, it was necessary that they should 

 comply with certain legal formalities, and, as a result, the following 

 resolution has been passed at the special meetings of the Society's 

 Council, and at a special meeting of the Society held for the 

 purpose that afternoon : — " That an arrangement having now been 

 come to between this Society and the Belfast Corporation, whereby 

 it is agreed that this Society shall transfer to the Belfast Corporation 

 all this Society's present and future collections and specimens and 

 the cases containing the same, with a view to the amalgamation of 

 the same with the municipal collection, and that as the Society 

 have no power under their scheme to dispose of the Society's 

 collections in the manner aforesaid, the Council of the Society be, 

 and they are hereby authorised to make application to the 

 Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland, 

 under article 34 of the Society's scheme, that the Society's scheme 

 be altered by the addition of the following words at the end of 

 clause 13 of the said scheme, or for such other alteration in the 

 said scheme as the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and 

 Bequests for Ireland shall deem expedient, viz. : — " With power to 

 the Council, with the consent of the Society, to transfer, either 

 permanently or upon temporary loan, to the Corporation of the 

 city of Belfast, upon such terms as the Council shall think fit, the 

 whole or any part of the collections and specimens and the cases 

 containing the same now belonging to or which may hereafter be 

 acquired by the Society." When this transfer was completed he 

 (Sir John Byers) believed it would be of the greatest advantage 

 to the Belfast City Council, the Belfast Natural History and 

 Philosophical Society, and, above all, to the public. The 

 Belfast Corporation, through the Library and Technical In- 

 struction Committee, which was doing such splendid educational 

 work under the chairmanship of their good friend Sir James 

 Henderson, would obtain a unique collection of natural history 

 specimens, which had taken years to accumulate, and which, 



