8 
EEPOKT OF THE 
fluence tliat the Society succeeded in obtaining from the Crown 
the first grant of land for the present site of its Museum; and 
the foimdation of the present building was laid by Archbishop 
Harcourt, on the 24th of October, 1827. 
If the continuance and success of the Society be chiefiy due 
to Mr. Harcourt, it is to the labours of Professor Phillips, its 
honoured Hoe-president, that the Society is indebted for the 
early establishment of its scientific reputation. 
Mr. Phillips became attached to the Society as the Keeper of 
its Museum in 1826. For some years preHously he had made 
the Geology of Yorkshire a special object of study, and in the 
year 1829 the first edition of his “Geology of Yorkshire” was 
published. 
In this work Professor Phillips was one of the first to call 
attention to the vast mineral deposits in the Oolitic district of 
North East Yorkshire. 
The Iron-stone had been known to exist in these strata for 
upwards of 50 years, and had been exported in small quantities 
from Whitby to Newcastle for smelting. The metal, however, 
was found to be of inferior quality, and had almost ceased to be 
worked. 
In the Geology of Yorkshii’e Professor Phillips not only 
shewed by a section, but described in his work the extraordinary 
thickness and richness of the Iron-stone bands in the dliffs on 
the Coast near Boulby and Skinningrove, in North East York¬ 
shire, a district, at the period referred to, pmely agricultural, 
but now studded with furnaces and teeming with a numerous 
manufacturing population. 
In recalling the extraordinary and rapid rise of Middlesbro’, 
and the vast trade in Iron which is now carried on in the 
Cleveland district of Yorkshii’e, it is not unreasonable to sup¬ 
pose that discoveries of a former officer of this Society have in 
all probability been the means of di’awing the attention of 
capitalists and manufactmers to a soiu’ce of w^ealth which in 
the last few years has added so much to the material prosperity 
of this County. 
The Council strongly urge upon the consideration of the 
Members that if the fame of this Society as a scientific institu- 
