10 
REPORT OF THE 
of the British Association at York this year, the memhers both of 
the Association and the Society will find this arrangement of 
great nse. The Council had peculiar satisfaction in acceding 
to this arrangement, as Mr. William Seed, who has again 
generously enriched our Museum with a collection which may 
he justly termed one of the great geological treasures of 
Yorkshire, strongly advised this course; hut the advantages of 
this arrangement wall he obvious to the memhers. 
Mr. Keeping commenced his duties at the Museum in 
September last, and the manner in which these have been 
performed, and the present state of the collections, have been 
highly satisfactory to the Council, who congratulate the 
members on the acquisition of so valuable an officer. When it 
is remembered that the collections on Vv^hich Mr. Keeping is 
now engaged consist of upwards of 100,000 specimens in 
number, that each specimen has to be carefully tabulated and 
stratigrapliically arranged, some idea may be formed of the 
vast amount of labour and scientific skill which will have to be 
expended before the arrangement of the collection is completed. 
Yearly two years ago your Secretary w^as invited by the 
Lord Mayor to accompany his Lordship and the Town Clerk to 
Sheffield to support an invitation to the British Association to 
visit York at their fiftieth anniversary, wdiieh, as is now well 
known, will take place here in the autumn of this year. In 
supporting the invitation your Secretary informed the President 
and Members of Committee that no persons would so heartily 
welcome the Members of the Association to York as those who 
now constitute the Society, from whose Museum, in the j^ear 
1831, the Association went forth ; a welcome which the Council 
are sure every member now present will as heartily join in 
giving when the time arrives. 
It may not be out of place briefly to state a few facts 
respecting the foundation of the British Association and its 
connexion with this Society. 
The original suggestion as to the formation of a scientific 
society appears to have been made to the Council by Dr. 
Brewster, afterwards so well known as Sir David Brewster, in 
