Many of the above combinations are proven by the fact of their occurring in the same language, the same group of dialects, or the same group of well studied alliances. Many others are easily disproved by criticism, being mere coincidences. And many are probably misplaced, as to the range of their radicals in the vertical rows, and might be placed to far better advantage to exhibit the law of insensible gradation. But the reality of the law is seen from these tables to be indisputable, and the further multiplication of tables will but heighten the illustration of the law. Arrange any one of the words of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, translated by the Antiquarian Societ of Paris into the seventy or eighty local dialects of France, and the law is at once established. The most incongruous and dissimilar forms are seen to be organically derived from one another. The French words fils and garcon and the English Looby are but widely separated

fragments of a series of forms regularly graded like the words of the preceding tables. Bou-eBe, Bou-Be, Fiu, Fieu, Fi, Fe, FaiL, FIL, FiL-G, VaL, VaLeT, FaNT, afFaNT, eNFANT, eNFaN, afFaN, aFaN, eFaN, eFoN, MeNioT, MeNeGe, MaiNaChé, G-aR-ChéeN, GaRChouN, GaeChoN, GaiChoN, GouGeaT, GouiaT, Gouia, GaRCouN, GaRCON, GaSSON, HiL, and an abnormal form DRoLei, belonging to some other series, or to a part of this series too distant to appear more than this once among the French patois; in fact a word bearing the same relation to the English DROLL that FiL does to FooL, that Boube does to Booby (German Bube, Boy), &c. &c. The most interesting point of this series is the change of FiL to HiL, through some lost form H'FL or G.FiL, the reverse of which still remains in FiL.G, MeNaGe, &c. This lost form is found in other languages; as in the Dshar Lesguis Caucasian KiMiR, Child, contracted in Hungarian (as in French patois) to Gi'eR-mek, child. In the Lesguis Antshong and Chunsagh, on the contrary, we have TiMiR, the original, so to speak (through Ti'eR), of the French patois DRoLei; as in the Georgian Suaneti we have BoBosh (Imeritian Boshi) to explain the French patois BouBe, a contracted repetition of the original Hebrew form BaR-BaR, the diminutive of BaR, boy.

Stated Meeting, November 18, 1859.

Present, eighteen members.

Dr. Wood, President, in the Chair.

Judge Carleton, a new member, was presented by Dr. Bache. A letter was read from Dr. W. A. Hammond, U. S. A. dated Fort Mackinaw, Michigan, Nov. 5, 1859, acknowledging notice of his election.

Library were announced:—

(Nov.)-From the Institute.
(Nov.)-From A. C. Society.

The following donations for the Journal Franklin Institute, No. 407. African Repository, XXXV. No. 11. Columbia College Annual Catalogue. 1859-60.-From the College. Inau. Addresses by T. W. Dwight and G. P. Marsh.—From the same. Pasigraphie mittels arabischer Zahlzeichen. Ein versuch von Moses Paic. Semlin, 1859.-From the Author.

Natural Philosophy, by B. Hobson, M. D. London Miss. Society, Canton, China; in Chinese, unbound.--From Dr. F. Bache.

The death of M. Guillaume Theophile Tilesius (elected 1819), a member of this Society, was announced by Dr. Bache.

On motion of Dr. Bache, the following biographical notice of John Reynell, read June 17, by Dr. B. H. Coates, was ordered to be printed:

The writer of this was, a few years since, invited by a deceased president, to furnish to this Society a brief notice of the above named member, for preservation in the archives. He has done so, in part out of reverence for the wishes of the distinguished individual alluded to, but also partly from a conviction that it is useful and honourable, in associated bodies, to procure and retain such memoirs. "Stare super antiquas vias" is pre-eminently the motto of learned incorporations; and, if it be thought to contain within it much that is objectionable, let us not fail to gather from it its proper and praiseworthy fruits; among which are stability, moderation, impartiality, and the opportu nity of benefitting by the example, for good and evil, of those who have preceded us.

John Reynell was the son of Samuel and Sarah Reynell, and was born at Bristol, England, June 15, 1708, old style; but was brought up at Exeter, in Devonshire, the residence of many of his relatives, at which individuals among them continued to reside after his death. His family was, at one time, of some note;* and several branches of it are said still to hold liege landed possessions. He was designed and educated for a merchant; and was sent, in a commercial capacity, to reside in the Island of Jamaica, at the early age of eighteen years. His advisers appear to have set as high a valuation on the activity of youth as is done at the present day; and Young England, in him, to have not been inferior in enterprise to Young America.

He was at that time under strong religious impressions. At his removal to Jamaica, he is found a member of the religious Society of Friends, in which it is inferred that he had been educated. He was diligent in the attendances expected of him in his religious connexion, and in efforts to obviate breaches of morality which he believed to be

* Barbe's Commoners; IV. pp. 446, 456. &c.; and Fuller's Worthies, Article Devonshire. Sir Richard Reynell defended the City of Exeter and Launcester Castle for Richard Coeur de Lion, against Prince John, afterwards King John Lackland. Sir Hugh Reynell was a Master and Governor (not to be confused with Grand Master) among the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, A. D. 1275; and the small harbour of Port Renelle, in the Island of Malta, received its name from this Knight, and still retained it in 1838.