THE MUSEUM OF THE SOCIETY. 
157 
He refused to execute the work for less than the sura mentioned to 
you, viz. : £11 10s. for two lights; he charges also for the back, 
£1 5s., making £35 los. Od. for the whole, for this sum he agTees to 
convey them and to fix them in the Museum at Wakefield without 
further cost. He proposes to finish them in six weeks, so that we 
shall have sufficient time to fill them with specimens before the 
meeting. We must also pay for the whitewashing and varnishing, 
which will amount to 20s. If Mr. Batty does his work well I think 
his charges are very moderate, I shall have an opportunity of inspecting 
the work as it proceeds. The Rule you have I believe is mine, for I 
have found it missing since the trip to Derby. 
I fear I cannot fix a day to meet you at Wakefield, for I am 
under promise to hold myself in readiness to spend a week from home 
either this week or next, but I will write to you as soon as I am 
able to say with certainty when I can see you. 
T. W. Embleton. 
At a meeting held at Halifax, on March 3rd,' 1841, a paper was 
read by Mr. T. W. Embleton, who had been curator of the museum 
from its inception, " On the Museum of the Society and on the 
various objects which it is desirable that it should contain." After 
an appeal for better premises than those occupied by the Society at 
Wakefield, the curator states objections urged by people against send- 
ing specimens to the museum, and says that everything is worth 
sending ; nothing is too common or will be rejected. He urges that 
the facilities for obtaining specimens are very gTeat in some mstances 
In quarries, railway and canal cuttings opportunities are afforded for 
making collections of different rocks and the fossils they contain, but 
it is necessary to remember that when they are completed we are 
probably for ever debarred making further collections of their organic 
treasures. In coal or iron mines, when once the shaft is sunk, we are 
precluded from knowing the organic contents of the strata passed 
through ; there is still, however, the roof of the coal and its floor and 
the ironstone and its matrix for research, and these should not be 
neglected. The contents of the museum are not numerous nor 
have the donors been many. About 1000 specimens have been 
numbered and are entered in the catalogue, and about as many more 
