10 
REPORT OF 
Such are the objects to which the exertions of the Officers 
and other Members of the Society are directed, and to which 
they may now be fully devoted. The general arrangements of 
the establishment have been at length completed, as far as 
circumstances will at present permit. The various means which 
have been for some years employed to excite a spirit of science 
have not been without their effect, and the system of scientific 
Committees gradually applied, as opportunities occur, to 
different branches of knowledge, will doubtless have a still 
greater efficacy in enlisting new recruits in the service of 
philosophy. There are many Members who have it in their 
power to give at least a portion of their time to these in¬ 
teresting and useful pursuits: to its younger Members 
especially the Society may look for zeal and activity in ad¬ 
vancing its scientific objects, in satisfying the expectations 
which its progress and conduct have raised, and making its 
utility and reputation answerable to the pains which have been 
bestowed upon its affairs, and the liberality with which its 
expenses have been supported, and its collections increased. 
The donations which have been made since the last Report 
to the collections of the Society, have been as numerous as in 
former years, and of even more than usual value. The most 
valuable specimen, perhaps, which has yet been presented to 
the Geological Museum, is that which has been given to it 
by the Rev. Christopher Sykes. It is well known to geologists, 
that in the Stonesfield slate one instance has been found, 
which, solitary as it is, suffices, if well established, to over¬ 
turn the whole body of negative evidence from which it might 
otherwise have been inferred that no terrestrial animal of a 
high order had existed before the deposition of the chalk, and 
places in a strong light the precariousness of all geological 
propositions which rest upon a negative deduction. This 
instance is the lower jaw-bone of an animal which Cuvier has 
determined to be allied to the marsupial division of carnivora, 
