SHEPPARD : MARTIN SIMPSON AND HIS GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS 311 
rounding villages, there are notes on alum, and a chapter devoted to 
natural history. This last is under the heads of vertebrata, mollusca, 
articulated animals, the radiated animals, botany and minerals. 
There is also an account of the antiquities. On the back cf the cover 
are advertised, " By the same author :" the " Guide to the Geology cf 
the Yorkshire Coast " (1/6), " The FcF.sils cf the Yorkshire Lias " (5/-), 
and " A History of England— William III.— To be continued to the end 
of the great French "War." This prcmif.e cf ccmpleticn was mede 
when Simpson was eighty-seven years of age. 
The Reports of the Whitby Literary and Philosophical Society 
— a complete set of which I possess by the kindness cf the late Thomas 
Newbitt — contain some useful information relating to Simpson. The 
first reference appears in the Thirteenth Report, published in 1835, 
where it states (p. 8), "A short course of Lectures on Astronomy and 
Optics was delivered last month [September] in the Library Rooms, 
to a respectable audience, by Mr. Martin Simpson (a native of 
Whitby)." 
In the Fourteenth Report (1836), the name, Mr. Martin Simpson, 
Wakefield," appears in the list of honorary members. In 1837 (p. 7), 
We read, " The Council, in order to expedite the improved classification 
of the Fossils, and other contents of the Museum, and to promote the 
general interests of the Society, have engaged Mr. Simpson, as Keeper 
of the Museum and Lecturer to the Institution," and his name con- 
tinues to appear as the Curator, sometimes with a colleague, till the 
70th Report in 1892, so that it appears that he acted for 55 years as a 
curator. 
In the Sixteenth Report we find that new shelves are fitted, 
upon which are arranged fossils of the Yorkshire Coast in their strati 
graphical order " ; some duplicates were sold to Prof. Sedgwick for the 
Cambridge Museum, for £13. The minerals were also re-arranged and 
labelled. The " list of additions " to the Museum contains particulars 
of several specimens by the Curator, such records appearing fairly 
regularly during the next half century. 
In the following year it seemed necessary to dispense with the 
Curator's services, on account of lack of funds, but a footnote adds 
Since the above was written Mr. Simpson has been engaged another 
year." The balance sheet for 1839 contained the item " to Mr. 
