with bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, and other extinct animals. I feel convinced that we are at the commencement of some of the most remarkable discoveries which have been lately made, and which certainly will have a great influence upon the further rapid progress of national archæology on the whole, and also upon its emancipation from old and new prejudices, and from socalled historical theories." Professor Worsääe's communication, Mr. Mennell remarked, completes and satisfies almost all the observations and inquiries of the writers previously quoted. "You have before you," he added, "specimens of implements from the gravel beds of Abbeville-from the more recent peatbeds-and, by the kindness of Mr. Kell, we have also the means of comparing them with the ordinary celts of the stone period of antiquaries. Mr. George Lyall, of South Shields, has also been kind enough to bring with him the implements recently found by Mr. Thompson, of Jarrow. These, however, having probably come with the ballast there deposited, we cannot build any theories upon them."

At the close of Mr. Mennell's interesting paper (of which I have given but a meagre abridgment), there was much applause.

Mr. Howse, of South Shields, concurred in the suggestion, that the Jarrow flints had come oversea with ballast. He was the more inclined to this supposition by his discovery in ballast, from time to time, of fossils, specimens of which he now produced-species of the genera Spatangus, Ananchytes, and Siphonia (a sponge) having been brought over, as he believed, from the north of France. Echini, he added, were often found in the ancient barrows, and may have been used as missiles.

Eight new members were elected on this occasion.

Our THIRD EVENING MEETING was held on Thursday, the 22nd February, when Mr. Clapham* read his paper on the natural formation of sulphur, and Mr. Brady his on the Foraminifera.

Of Mr. H. B. Brady's paper the following is a brief summary: -Physiologists (he said) are accustomed to classify vital functions under three heads-those pertaining to Nutrition,

As Mr. Clapham's paper will be printed in our "Transactions," an epitome of it is unnecessary here.

Reproduction, and Relation. The faculties of nutrition and reproduction belong in common to animals and vegetables: those of relation are essentially animal; but in how slight a degree they are enjoyed by the lowest types of animal life, he proceeded to show. The most striking of the functions of relation are those connected with what we term the sensesseeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling; and all these faculties, together with special organs for locomotion and for the prehension of food, we usually find developed, to a greater or less extent, in animals. But Mr. Brady had to call upon his audience to lay aside these ideas for a time, and be content to recognise as an animal a being devoid of all these powers-a minute atom of jelly, floating freely in water, without even a skin-endowed with no special organ whatever-capable only of extending portions of its gelatinous body into irregular threadlike filaments, which, whilst extended, answer the double purpose of assisting locomotion and seizing food-and, these duties performed, coalescing again into an amorphous mass. Such is the Amaba-the proteus of animal life. Having considered this gelatinous atom in its naked condition, as in the Amabaæa, and again, covered with a horny membrane, or sometimes a sandy carapace, as in the Arcellina, it is easy to ascend one step more, and we then find it provided with a symmetrical calcareous shell. We cannot present in our pages the drawings and mountings by which Mr. Brady showed how widely the various species of Foraminifera differ in conformation and appearance. Some consist of only a single cell or chamber; several have numerous chambers arranged end to end in a single line; in a third class, this line of cells is rolled into a spiral form; another has the same spiral arrangement, but consisting of two alternate rows of cells; two or three alternate rows also occur, but not spirally coiled; another class has large chambers arranged down a longitudinal axis; and, lastly, some have the chambers arranged in concentric rings. In almost every other division of Natural History, the limitation of the area inhabited by particular species is well defined; frequently, to name a locality is to afford an index to the specimen, and vice versa. But with the Foraminifera

it is far different. Not only do species and genera exist over very large areas, but we find forms identical with them in a fossil condition down to the remotest geological epoch. Having enlarged upon this portion of his subject, Mr. Brady came to the revelations of Brooks's sounding lead. Portions of the ocean bed, at depths of upwards of three miles, have been brought up, and submitted to examination. From the reports made by the late Professor Bailey, of New York, upon the microscopic characters of these soundings, we gather that the unctuous, clayey-looking deposit, thus drawn from the deep recesses of the Atlantic, instead of consisting entirely of inorganic matter, as was at first supposed, contained scarcely a trace of anything but living organisms—that it consisted almost wholly of the shells of Foraminifera, either perfect or broken. Mr. Brady exhibited mountings of similar character to those of the Atlantic soundings obtained from a depth of about a mile and a half, between Malta and Crete, in the Mediterranean-the same species seeming to predominate at all these great depths. Another curious fact, bearing somewhat on the subject, is, that whilst the bed of the Atlantic is apparently composed entirely of the calcareous shells of Foraminifera, that of the Pacific is almost devoid of calcareous deposit, but is made up of the silicious frustules of Diatomacea. But all observers agree that the deeper the soundings the smaller the proportion of inorganic matter; so that, probably, at the greatest depths, nothing whatever is present upon the floor of the ocean but Foraminifera and Diatomacea, with scattered spicules of sponges and other protozoa. In a geological point of view, this fact is very suggestive, as accounting for the multitudes in which fossil remains are found in the chalk and some other strata. Probably no class of animals has played so important a part in the formation of the crust of the earth as the Foraminifera. We may descend into the primary formations, and we find, even in the Silurian strata, their remains, in the form of casts, in a certain sandy clay in some parts of Russia. In the Permian, and in the Magnesian Limestone of our own neighbourhood, there have been discovered species of no less than four genera. The various strata of the Secondary age abound in their

remains. In the Oolite they performed a conspicuous part as the nuclei of the egg-shaped particles of which it is composed. But in the Chalk their prodigious numbers bewilder us. The cliffs of the Kentish coast seem entirely made up of fossil Foraminifera. We are told that we speak within bounds when we say that each cubic inch contains the remains of a million individuals; and we know that the same formation extends over thousands of square miles in the S. E. of England and N.W. of France, to an average thickness of a thousand feet. Then the Tertiary formations; the Eocene of the Paris basin, the Miocene of Vienna or San Domingo, the Pliocene of Central Italy, of Spain, or of our own Coralline Crag, and the Pleistocene everywhere, all of them present us with specimens of infinite beauty and in the utmost abundance. A few remarks followed, relative to the forms found on our own coast, collated chiefly from the gatherings of Mr. Alder and Mr. Brady himself. The mode of collecting, and the best localities for search, were also briefly touched upon. In conclusion, Mr. Brady said that he had often thought, when employed over these most interesting objects, that the lines of Wordsworth seemed to be specially written for naturalists—or, at least, that none can endorse the sentiment they convey more fully:—

Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, its fears;
To me, the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

A large number of illustrated mounted specimens were placed upon the table, under microscopes suitably arranged for their exhibition; and thus was brought to a close an address of great interest, to which I feel that I have done the scantiest justice. Mr. THOMAS THOMPSON exhibited a specimen of Ommastrephes todarus (one of the cuttle fishes), found at Tynemouth.

Dr. EMBLETON exhibited, much to the interest of the members, a human skull, and also the skull of a cod-fish, beautifully articulated by Mr. James Flower, of London, in such a manner that they could each be shown as a whole, or in separate sec

VOL. IV. PT. III.

2 B

tions, to illustrate the theory that the head is a portion of the vertebral column-that of man consisting of the nasal, frontal, parietal, and occipital vertebræ.

Five candidates were admitted into the Club at this meeting. In turning from our meetings to the printed " Transactions" now in the hands of our members, I trust we may congratulate ourselves on the activity of our Society. The part for the past year exemplifies the assiduity and research of many of our body in the various branches of knowledge which are comprised in our province. In Meteorology we have two papers by our Secretary, Mr. Mennell, and Mr. Watson, before alluded to; in Antiquarian research, an interesting account by Mr. Johnson, of Roman remains found in the Wear; and in Geology, the study of which we may consider as both the basis and the culminating point of natural science, the valuable contribution of Messrs Kirkby and Jones continues the history of the Permian strata of the county of Durham. Dr. Charlton has supplied us with a learned and accurate summary of the history, so far as yet known, of the former abundance, and present too probable extinction of the Great Auk. Mr. Bold has contributed a paper on the additions to our Entomological knowledge in the year 1858; while Mr. Alder has again enriched our local fauna by two new species of Sertularian Zoophytes found on the Northumberland coast, and illustrated his descriptions by two admirable plates.

While referring to Dr. Charlton's able paper on the Great Auk, I may mention that my late valued friend, Mr. John Wolley, personally known to several of us, whose sudden and early removal hence has left a blank in the ranks of our working ornithologists which can never be filled, had very recently undertaken a voyage to Iceland in prosecution of his researches respecting the Great Auk, which had already occupied several years of his life. He has left behind him an accumulation of notes and papers respecting that bird which have been entrusted to Mr. Alfred Newton, Fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge, for arrangement and publication. The name of that gentleman is a sufficient guarantee that full justice will be done to Mr. Wolley's MSS. by his literary executor.