173 
never seen anything of the kind before ; they were directed 
where to look for more, and at the next visit of the Doctor 
to the quarry, the workmen said " We havie now got our 
eyes opened ; how blind we must have been, not to have seen 
these things daily!" I remember a similar case in my own 
experience, where workmen had been absolutely touching 
daily for forty years valuable fossils, without being aware of 
their presence. The facilities, however, for obtaining speci- 
mens are very great in some instances. In a quarry, being 
a continuous excavation of the same rock, or at farthest of 
different parts of the same rock, we can, in a few months, by 
constant observation, obtain specimens of the several varieties 
of rock worked, and of the fossils appertaining to them. 
The same remark will apply to nearly the whole of the 
railw^ and canal cuttings, but we must remember that when 
they are completed, we are probably for ever debarred from 
robbing them of their organic treasures. 
In a coal mine or in an ironstone mine, when once the 
shaft is sunk, we are precluded, as in the former case, from 
knowing the organic contents of the strata sunk through. 
We still, however, have the roof of the coal and its floor, 
and the ironstone and its matrix for our researches, and 
these should not be neglected. 
Now in the Case of a particular rock, take a rock of sand- 
stone for example — if we are in possession of specimens 
showing all its different aspects mineralogically, and of a 
complete suite of fossils which occur in it, shall we not be 
more able to identify it should it ever again appear in another 
part of the coal field, than if we were not able to refer to 
such specimens? and so with the various coals and ironstones. 
The contents of the Museum are not numerous nor have the 
donors been many. About 1000 specimens have been 
numbered and entered in the catalogue, and about as many 
more remain to be arranged ; but these specimens, excellent 
