COUNCIL FOR 1848 . 
15 
During the meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society in 
York, the Museum was honoured by a visit from His Royal 
Highness Prince Albert, who minutely inspected the Cabinets 
of Natural History and the Collection of Antiquities, and who 
was pleased to express his approbation of the condition in 
which he found them. 
The great influx of visitors on that occasion, and the num» 
her of excursion trains during the summer, have caused the 
Museum and Grounds to be visited by a larger number of 
Strangers during the past than in any former year, and aug¬ 
mented the receipts at the gate beyond any previous experience. 
The state of the Society’s finances will show how important it 
is to preserve, un diminished, this source of its income. 
The Council have received, with regret, a letter from Robert 
Davies, Esq., announcing his desire to resign the office of Trea¬ 
surer, which he has held during a period of eleven years, to the 
great benefit of the Society. As a mark of the high respect 
with which the valuable services of Mr. Davies are universally 
regarded, the Meeting will no doubt gladly accept the proposal 
of the Council to elect him a Vice-President of the Society for 
the ensuing year. 
The attention of the Council having frequently been called to 
an abuse which existed, in the unlimited distribution of Orders 
for the gratuitous admission of strangers to the Museum, a 
Special Meeting of the Society was summoned to consider the 
best means of remedying the evil. The result of this appeal 
was the unanimous resolution of a very numerous meeting, that 
Members shall be allowed to issue twenty-five orders annually, 
each order not admitting more than four persons ; and it is 
gratifying to the Council to find, that as far as the system has 
been tried, it promises in its results to be highly beneficial 
to the Society. The resolutions passed at that meeting will be 
found appended to this report. 
The proceeds of the Swimming Bath have not quite^equalled 
those of the two previous years, a circumstance entirely attri¬ 
butable to the unfavourable weather during the summer months. 
A small expense has been found necessary in the dwelling- 
house appropriated to the bath keeper. 
