The Prospectus which announces the design of forming, at 
York, a Philosophical Society, with a Scientific Library and 
Museum, was issued in December, 1822. A circular dated 
January 6, 1823, describes the Society as being already formed, 
and fixes the times of meeting and the conditions of the 
election of members. A slight variation is obseivable in the 
statement of the Society’s objects in these two documents. In 
the Prospectus it is said to be chiefly designed to be a Scientific 
Library and Repository of the Antiquities which abound in the 
vicinity of the city, and of the geological specimens furnished 
by the county. In the circular, the particular object of the 
Society is stated to be to elucidate the Geology of Yorkshire, 
the Museum being also a Repository for Antiquities. In the 
priority assigned to his favourite science, w'e may trace, I think, 
the hand of Mr. Yernon Harcourt. lie had in the interval 
been elected as a member by the three original authors of the 
scheme—Colonel Salmond, Mr. Atkinson, and Mr. Thorpe. 
Colonel Salmond was a member of the Geological Society; 
Mr. Atkinson was eminent both as a surgeon and a compara¬ 
tive anatomist; and Mr. Thorpe, without possessing great 
scientific attainments, was a man of liberal culture and a 
collector of the fossils of the neighbourhood of York. With 
these tastes it is not wonderful that the discovery of the bones 
of extinct animals in the cave at Kirkdale in 1820 should have 
excited their attention. 
To which of them the idea first suggested itself, of uniting 
their collections in a public Museum, probably they themselves 
could not tell. The developement of that idea into a Philoso¬ 
phical Society was, no doubt, accelerated by the addition of the 
Rev. W. Venables Yernon (Harcourt) to the original three. 
At the first Meeting of the British Association, at York, in 
1831, Lord Milton, who presided, spoke of the Rev. Win. 
Yernon as the person to Avhom the Yorkshire Philosophical 
Society oived its origin. Mr. Salmond somewhat warmly com¬ 
plained of this, in a letter to his Lordship, alleging that he 
proposed the plan to Mr. Atkinson and Mr. Thorpe, and that 
they elected as the first member, the Rev. W. Yernon.” No 
doubt the statement made by Mr. Atkinson, after the dinner 
