THE EXISTING MUSEUM. 
49 
twelve Trustees, of whom he was the last survivor, for the 
purposes of the Society. Under his auspices the subscription 
to the Museum Building Fund was commenced, winch 
ultimately reached ,£9,000. The present building, begun in 
1830, was in 1831 in a state of sufficient completeness to- 
receive within its walls the members of the British Association 
that was to be. The Museum occupies one of the finest and 
most historic sites in York, on the crest of the In’ll, between 
the King’s Manor and the river, with the old Roman Wall 
and the Multangular Tower and St. Leonard’s Hospital on 
one side, and the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey on the other. 
The Yorkshire Philosophical Society has done much to 
throw light upon the history and conditions of Eboracum 
by gathering in its museums, mainly in the Hospitium, in 
ancient days part of the domestic offices of St. Mary's 
Abbey, a very large collection of objects illustrative of Roman 
manners and life. There is no collection from any Roman 
site in Britain that can be compared with it. More than 
fifty inscriptions are preserved—funereal and votive. Between 
thirty and forty huge stone cists are in the grounds of the 
Society, with examples of almost every kind of interment in 
use among the Romans. Nearly 700 urns, most of them 
made on the spot, and of all forms, are shown in the Museum, 
with a multitude of other objects, including the auburn hair, 
“ flavus crinis,” of a young Roman lady taken out of her 
coffin, and still ornamented with the pins of jet she used in 
life. The reign of Trajan is represented in the Museum by 
an inscription, cut in the year 108-9 of our era, recording the 
completion of some work of the Ninth Legion, dedicated 
by them to the Emperor. It was, says Canon Raine hi 
his History of York, probably the palace or some building 
of great importance which may have been built by the order 
of Trajan himself. There are also memorials of Hadrian, 
Severus, Constantine, and other great Romans. 
