SEL BORNE SOCIETY NOTICES 
39 
Sibley; Lt.-Col. R. J. S. Simpson; Mrs. R. J. S. Simpson; John D. Smelt, 
Esq.; Miss .Spark ; Otto Staphf, Esq., Ph.D. ; J. Stogdon, Esq.; H. Sugden, 
Esq. ; W. G. Taylor, Esq. ; Dr. H. G. Toombs ; George A. Wade, Esq., 
B.A. ; Miss Eleanor A. Webb; Ridley M. Webster, Esq., M.R.C.S. ; Dudley 
Wright, Esq. 
Subscriptions . — The Council has pleasure in acknowledging subscriptions of 
greater value than 5s. from the following members : E. S. Morphew, Esq., 
^2 2s. ; Lady Farrer, £2; Miss Ellen Lomer, £2; C. Surgey, Esq., £l 6s.; 
Miss C. Alston, £l is.; T. J. Barratt, Esq., £\ is.; Dr. Dudley Buxton, 
£\ IS. ; Mrs. W. Greenwood, £l is. ; Mrs. Currer Jones, £i is. ; Miss E. 
Nicholl, £\ IS. ; W. C. Stapleden, Esq., £l is. ; C. D. Davis, Esq., los. 6d. ; 
Mrs. C. D. Davis, los. 6d ; A. J. Hall, Esq., los. 6d. ; Mrs. Robinson, los. 6d. ; 
Mrs. Picton Tubervill, los. 6d. ; Cosmo Blure, Esrj., los. ; E. A. Bristow, Esq., 
los. ; Miss Broderick, los. ; Charles Burt, Esq., los. ; F'. S. Clayton, Esq., lOs. ; 
R. Evans, Esq., los. ; F. W. Headley, Esq., los. ; The Rev. F. M. Millard, 
los. ; Lady Simeon, los. ; Mrs. Wilkinson .Smith, los. ; C. W. Ware, Esq., los. ; 
Miss Wright, los. ; Spencer H. Bickham, Esq., 7s. 6d. ; Alfred Culshaw, Esq., 
7s. 6d. ; Miss M. E. Hodgskin, 7s. 6d. : Richard T. Lewis, Esq., 7.S. 6d. ; Mrs, 
Paterson, 7s. 6d. ; Mrs. Pro'»art, 7s. 6d. ; Miss M. W. Ranken, 7s. 6d. ; Clifton 
II. Regnart, Esq., 7s. 6d. ; Mrs. R. Congreve, 7s. ; Mrs. Ellen Frank, 7s. ; Mrs. 
Osmond Freeland, 6s. 
The Committee of the Ealing Branch has pleasure in acknowledging a 
sub.-cription of 6s. from Miss A. L. Sheale. 
Library. — The Honorary Librarian has pleasure in announcing the follow- 
ing additions to the Library : “ Birds of the Loch and Mountain,” by Seton P. 
Gordon ; “ The Fairyland of Living Things,” by Richard and Cherry Kearton ; 
“ Gilbert White of Selborne,” by W. H. Mullens ; “ Home Life of Marsh 
Birds,” hy Emma Turner and P. H. Bahr ; all kindly presented by the Editor. 
The Honorary Librarian will attend at 20, Hanover Square, from 6 p.m. 
to 6.30 p.m. on the evenings of February 17 and March 16, for the purpose of 
issuing books to members. 
EXCURSIONS. 
Saturday, January ii. — By the courtesy of Dr. A. E. Wallis Budge, Keeper 
of the Department, fifty-two members and friends met at the British Museum, 
Bloomsbury, and viewed the Egyptian Antiquities. The party was led by Mr. 
Spencer, a member of the staff of the Museum, who very clearly gave the history 
of the most interesting of the exhibits. Despite the usual inconvenience occasioned 
by the public encroaching into the party, a very enjoyable and instructive after- 
noon was spent by all. The first exhibit at which Mr. Spencer stopped was 
the famous Rosetta Stone which was captured by the French at Alexandria ; it 
passed into the hands of the British at the capitulation of that town and was 
deposited in the Museum in 1802. The stone, which is of basalt, is inscribed 
with a trilingual decree conferring divine honours on Ptolemy V. in B.C. 195, 
and was made by order of the priests of Memphis. It has played a very great 
part in the elucidation of the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptians. 
The inscription being in uncial Greek as well as in both the sacred and ordinary 
characters of the Egyptian, students were enabled to extend their knowledge of 
the hieroglyphic alphabet, which had previously been fragmentary. Several 
interesting rolls of papyri were next seen ; these were the books of the Egyptians. 
The paper is of a rough texture and was manufactured from the stem of the 
papyrus plant which grew in the Nile. The colours in which the hieroglyphics 
are written were made from earths, and are in many instances as bright to-day 
as when first the papyri were written. The party next stopped in the midst of 
the sculptures of the reign of Rameses II., 1333 B.C. Two wooden statues in 
a marvellous state of preservation dating from 1300 B.C. are specially worthy of 
note, as they demonstrate very clearly the wonderful preservative powers of 
Egyptian air and Egyptian dust. On the walls of the next gallery are several 
tablets taken from tombs which bear the effigy of the occupant and his ancestors 
to two or three generations. The interior of one tomb (30CO B.C.) bears the 
earliest form of tomb hieroglyphics, which set forth the offerings which the dead 
wished to have put for him in the tomb with his body. The Egyptians believed 
that the soul would at some future time reanimate the same body. Hence they 
