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The Conversazione. 



education of the people, schools in which the people were well 

 educated, but above all there was a museum or gallery in which 

 antiquities were collected, where there was also a good library, and 

 a room dedicated entirely to the productions of the artizans of the 

 county in which the museum was situated. (Applause.) Nothing 

 could be more instructive or interesting than to go through such 

 museums, and they could not fail to be a great stimulant to the 

 youth of the country as they inspected the work of their clever 

 fellows in the district. (Hear, hear, and applause.) 



THE CONVERSAZIONE 

 was held in the evening at half-past seven, at the Court Hall, when 

 the President first called on the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath for his 

 promised paper u On the White Horses of Wiltshire and its neigh- 

 bourhood," and which proved to be a most able and exhaustive treatise, 

 evidencing great diligence and research, as the members may see for 

 themselves at a future page of the Magazine. 



Dr. Thurnham, F.S.A., remarked that there was once a white 

 horse near Devizes on the side of Roundway Down, which Mr. 

 Plenderleath had not mentioned ; he was told that it was formed 

 about the year 1845 ; but now it was nearly, if not quite obliterated. 



Mr. Cunnington, F.G.S., then made some remarks upon the 

 geology of the neighbourhood of Westbury station, and exhibited 

 specimens of ores, furnace products, and fossil remains from the 

 Westbury Iron Works. 



He alluded to the remarkable advantages afforded to Geology by 

 the numerous sections opened by the railway cuttings throughout 

 the country. Many interesting Geological phenomena were shown 

 during the construction of the Wilts, Somerset, and Weymouth 

 Railway, passing as it does over the chief deposits of the Oolitic 

 strata, in a district singularly rich in fossil remains. 



The late Mr. Reginald Mantell, son of the well known Dr. Gideon 

 Mantell, was appointed resident engineer of the line, and his paper 

 on the strata and organic remains of the Branch Railway, published in 

 the Geological Journal, Vol. vi., 1850, affords evidence of his ability 

 as a Geologist. 



