1846-47 
WESTiMINSTER PLAY 
307 
attend such enlargement of my sphere of joublic 
utility.’ 
As Owen anticipated, his duties as Com- 
missioner were not always particularly pleasant. 
‘ He was to have taken the chair this evening 
at “ The Club,” ’ his wife writes in the journal 
(December 14), ‘but was obliged to get off. He 
had been too much harassed all day for anything 
but to stay at home. Commission again ! ’ 
On the 19th we have the following entry : 
‘ R. went to Westminster to see the Latin play. 
He said the play was all very well, but he could 
not help thinking of the accommodation provided 
for the boys. They had to stand four hours in 
a cramped, crowded, and exceedingly close place, 
without much possibility of moving. R. supped 
with Mr. Rigaud and the boys.’ 
In this year also may be mentioned the foun- 
dation of the Palaeontographical Society, of which 
Owen was one of the heartiest supporters. This 
Society, which had for its object the figuring 
and describing British fossils, owed its origin to 
the London Clay Club, formed by Bowerbank, 
Edwards, Searles Wood, Morris, Alfred White, 
and Wetherell in 1836, for the purpose of inquir- 
ing into the fauna and flora of the London Clay, 
^n 1847, after the paper by Joseph Prestwich at 
the Geological Society, ‘ On the Structure of the 
London Clay,’ Bowerbank urged the geologists 
Present in the tea-room to support him in esta- 
