Malton Museum and Other Geological Collections . 107 
the building has changed hands : the old rooms used for museum and 
lecture purposes have entirely been transformed in connection with a 
Masonic Temple, etc., and one large room has been decorated and cased 
and contains the fine collections of prehistoric, Roman, and Saxon 
remains, gathered together largely through the work of Dr. J. L. Kirk 
and Mr. P. Corder. These are principally from the immediate Malton 
district and should, of course, remain in Malton, and it is pleasing to 
find that the necessary arrangements have been made for their permanent 
home to be there. 
The geological specimens have been transferred to Hull where a 
large number of the principal geological collections relating to Yorkshire 
seem to be concentrated. The series from the chalk, Oolites, 
Speeton Clays and Drift, formed by the late J. R. Mortimer, which were 
housed in a special building known as the Mortimer Museum in Driffield, 
suffered a similar fate to those at Malton, and through the kindness of 
Colonel G. H. Clarke were purchased and presented to the people of 
Hull, where a selection of the more interesting specimens can be seen. 
Oddly enough, the Mortimer Museum at Driffield has been taken over 
by the Masonic brethren and to-day serves the purpose of a Masonic 
Temple and meeting place. 
One well-known collector of fossils of a quarter of a century or so ago 
was the late H. C. Drake, of Scarborough, who spent some years in 
business at Hull. Mr. Drake devoted his holidays and week-ends, and 
frequently afternoons, in collecting from the various quarries in York- 
shire, particularly in the Scarborough and Whitby neighbourhood, and 
he also was a well-known purchaser of specimens from the brick clays 
at Peterborough. In those days, when the clays were worked by hand, 
gigantic saurians or fish-lizards and other remains were put aside by 
the workmen, Mr. Drake being the principal purchaser. One ‘ paddle 
of a saurian which he obtained there was over three feet in length. On 
accoulit of difficulties in exhibiting his collections, Mr. Drake handed 
them over to the Hull Museum during his lifetime. 
At Peterborough again, collecting will not be possible for the future 
as the methods of quarrying have been entirely altered ; ‘ grabs,’ which 
take a slice of the working face from the bottom to the top in thin slices, 
deposit the load in a truck which is automatically taken to the grinding 
mill by cable, and in this way, even if a saurian were met with in the 
quarry, it would be unseen and it would go, a small section at a time, 
into the grinding mill as truck after truck was filled. This makes col- 
lections already existing in museums of altogether exceeding importance, 
and those who possess skeletons of these old-time denizens of the waters 
are lucky indeed. 
Another well-known Scarborough collector who had reputation 
all over the country was the late G. Lether. Like Mr. Drake, he had an 
extraordinary eye for a good specimen, his collections formed the 
basis of many important geological monographs, and he was employed 
by all the geological societies visiting North East Yorkshire, not only on 
account of his guidance, but for the ability with which he could point 
out interesting specimens enabling the visitors to chisel them out for 
themselves. His collections are now at Hull. 
A collection of entirely unique character was made some years ago 
by Mr. E. B. Lotherington, of Scarborough, the owner of a large chalk pit 
at Middleton-on-the-Wolds, which occurs in certain zones of the chalk 
not exposed elsewhere. In this quarry the fossil sponges are preserved 
in such a perfect manner by being impregnated with an iron oxide, but 
perhaps its principal feature lies in the large nautilus-like inocerami 
(I. ivolutus), some of which were sent to the British Museum as they had 
nothing like them from any part of the world. Through Mr. Lothering- 
ton’s kindness, his collection was purchased for the Museum at Hull 
on reasonable terms. 
1933 May 1 
