COUNCIL FOR 1879. 
0 
Faluns of Touraine, and a hundred species from beds of the 
same age in the Basin of Vienna have been added to the 
Collection by Mr. W. Beed, F.Gr.S., our Honorary Curator. 
During the past year the arrangement of the room containing 
the collection of Fossils occurring in the strata which constitute 
the first great Division of the Sedimentary Rocks has been 
completed, and it is now open to the public. 
It will give some idea of the importance of the magnificent 
donation with which Mr. W. Reed has enriched our Museum, 
when it is stated that the cases of this large room, which 
formerly contained the whole of the General Geological Collec¬ 
tion, now little more than suffice for the Fossils of the Tertiary 
and Post-Tertiary Formations. 
The Collection commences wfith a complete series of the 
British Land, Fresh-water, and Marine Shells, systematically 
arranged in their Classes, Orders, Families, and Genera, these 
divisions being distinctly marked off by clearly printed labels. 
This is placed on one side of the upper part of the case, which 
occupies the whole length of the centre of the room. It is 
followed on the other side by several series of shells occurring 
in the glacial and post-glacial muds and sands of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland. The lower divisions of this central case 
contain on one side the fossils of the Norwich or Fluvio-niarine 
Crag, and the verj^ fine series of vertebrate remains, for the 
most part found at the base of the Red Crag; and on the 
opposite side an extensive collection of Mollusca and other 
invertebrates of the same formation. 
In the wall-cases surroundings the room are placed in 
descending order, beginning at the left hand of the entrance :— 
1. The Pre-historic and Pleistocene Mammalia, ineludino’ 
those of the Cromer Forest Bed, numbering 381 specimens, and 
654 tablets of shells from the alluvial and marine deposits of 
the latter period. 
2. A very large collection of beautifully preserved fossils 
from the Coralline Crag, contained in glass-topped boxes, and 
mounted on 1029 tablets. 
3. A fine series of the Newer Pliocene of Sicily, approxi¬ 
mately of the same age as the Norwich Crag, 300 tablets, and 
