The session closed with a very brilliant lecture from Mr. R. Winterbotham, “"On the Pleasures and Objects of Taste;" in the course of which the lecturer defined the word "Taste," which he considered an acquired quality of mind; and then proceeded to give illustrations of the very different manner in which the same scenery in the external world are regarded by different beholders. He next adverted to the pleasure which may be derived, by the cultivated mind, from the associations of history, the associations of our personal experience, and the associations of literature.

We regret our limits will not permit us to give an analysis of this interesting discourse.

SHROPSHIRE AND NORTH WALES NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY.

THIS Society held their first scientific meeting at the Museum, on Tuesday, the 5th of January. The chair was taken, soon after 7 o'clock, by Dr. Du Gard, vice president, who, after a few prefatory observations on the order which was to be observed in the proceedings of the meeting, commenced the reading of portions of a paper in refutation of one by Mr. Trimmer, read before the Geological Society, relative to the supposed remains of a forest, underlying a deposit of sea sand abounding in recent species of shells, which had been exposed to view by the late alterations in the London Road, near the Horse-shoe public house, seven miles from Shrewsbury. Dr. Du Gard, in company with Mr. Murchison, had carefully examined the spot, and had succeeded in extracting the remains of one of the supposed trees, which proved to be a pile, of considerable length, which, with other hewn pieces of timber, had, at some early period, been employed in the construction of a dam. The author, in comparison of the relative position of the Roman station Uriconium and the exposed deposit, came to the conclusion that it had probably formed a portion of the Roman Wattling-street road, and that the sand had been removed from the deposit which more or less prevails all over the plain of Shropshire, to fill up some previously existing hollow.

Mr. T. C. Eyton next read an interesting paper, illustrated with ́ drawings, on the beautiful adaptation of form to habit observable in the bill of the adult and young bird of the Common OysterCatcher (Hæmatopus ostralegus, Linn.) The bill of the adult bird was of a taper wedge-like form, with the edge placed vertically, and admirably adapted for striking off the rocks, at one blow, the limpets upon which it feeds; whilst the bill of the young bird, whose proper food was small mollusca, crustacea, and marine insects,

was slightly hooked at the point, and, except in length, perfectly similar to that of the soft-billed or insectivorous birds.

An elaborate paper, by Mr. Henry Pidgeon, was next read, on the Ancient History of the Hundred and Manor of Stottesden, county Salop, in which the descent and property of the manor was, with considerable ability, clearly and satisfactorily traced, from the earliest to the present times. Mr. P. also intimated his intention of resuming the subject at some future period.

Afterwards, an excellent paper on the Sleep of Plants was read by Dr. Henry Johnson, which excited great interest and attention. The author, after briefly reviewing the opinions of preceding writers as to the cause of the phenomenon proved by a series of careful observations and experiments, that the sleep of plants was quite independent of the humidity of the atmosphere, and the absence or presence of solar light; and deduced that the cause would, in all probability, be found in the relative degree of light, or in the transition from a greater to a less light; and that those motions which produce the phenomena of sleeping and waking of plants, depend on irritability, and are governed by all the rules which influence, in other cases, this vital property.

Mr. R. A. Slaney then read some highly interesting observations on a pair of Choughs, which had been partially domesticated, and whose habits, in consequence, he had been enabled to observe.

Mr. T. C. Eyton afterwards offered some remarks on the systematic classification of the Chough.

Mr. W. A. Leighton made a few passing observations in introducing to the Society a specimen of Erica Mackaiana, (Bab. MSS.), a species of Heath, new to the British Flora, which had been found during the month of August, 1835, in Connemara, in the West of Ireland, by Mr. C. C. Babington, of Cambridge, an honorary member of the Society. This species holds an intermediate station between Erica tetralix and E. cinerea, partaking of the flowers of the former, and the delicate ciliato-glandulose leaves of the latter.

After the usual vote of thanks to the chairman, the meeting separated.

March 2nd. Dr. Du Gard, V. P., in the chair.—An interesting Paper, by Mr. J. E. Bowman, of Gresford, was read, giving an account of the structure and affinities of a new fossil vegetable, named Favularia nodosa,* discovered by him in the roof of the lowest workable coal, at Flint Marsh Colliery, on the estuary of the Dee. A fine specimen of this beautiful fossil, presented by the discoverer, was exhibited, on which the undulations and pencillings of the areola to which the bases of the leaves had been attached were as clear and sharp as the impression from a seal, and even required the lens to shew their delicate inequalities.

Mr. T. C. Eyton commenced the reading of a catalogue of the

* Since engraved (most miserably) in Lindley's and Hutton's Fossil Flora, part 20.

vertebrate animals of Shropshire and North Wales, interspersed with brief but excellent remarks on their varieties and habits. This first portion comprised the Order Mammalia, in which 23 animals, exclusive of varieties, were enumerated as existing in the district.

Mr. W. A. Leighton read a Paper, illustrated with drawings, on the structure of the mummy-cloth of the Egyptians; and shewed, from a microscopical examination of the unravelled fibres of the bandages enveloping the mummy presented to the Society by the Venerable Archdeacon Butler, that the same was linen; and not cotton, as had been supposed by many writers. The fibres of the mummy-cloth, and those of flax, proving to be cylindrical tubes, articulated like a cane; whilst those of cotton were plain cylindrical transparent tubes, without joints.

Dr. Henry Johnson followed, with a Paper on the chemical composition of the Egyptian mummy-case; and exhibited to the Society, by several interesting analyses, the peculiar nature of each of the substances composing the bituminous matter in which the body was enveloped, and the different colours employed in the beautiful paintings with which the cases were adorned.

Dr. Du Gard presented the Society with a Paper, containing a detailed account of the French botanist, Dutrochet's, observations relative to the phenomenon named by him endosmose; the principle, according to him, by which the circulation of the sap in plants is carried on.

The phenomenon endosmose consists in the mutual affinity exerted towards each other by two fluids of different densities placed on opposite sides of a membrane; an immediate intermixture taking place, the denser fluid passing through the membrane, and its place being supplied by the less dense fluid, until the density of the two fluids becomes equal. An instrument, termed an endosmometer, was exhibited, in which the phenomenon was going forward, and by which the comparative velocity of the current of the fluids was ascertained; that of a syrup three times the density of water producing an endosmose capable of sustaining a pressure equal to the weight of three atmospheres.

Mr. H. Pidgeon concluded his paper (the former portion of which was read in January) on the History of Stottesden, with an account of the advowson, and a description of the church.

Among the more interesting donations received by the society lately, were the following: Skull of the red-deer, boar's tusks, and iron instruments, found sixteen feet below the surface, in excavating the foundations of the New Town Hall, Shrewsbury, presented by the Venerable Archdeacon Butler. Sixty species of Land and Fresh-water Shells, by Mr. H. Bloxam, of Ellesmere. Injected Preparations of the Head and Leg of the Ass (Equus Asinus), and twenty skins of Foreign and British Birds, by Mr. T. C. Eyton. A case containing two Idols, from the East Indies, by Mr. J. Ross. Leaf of the Talipot Palm, from Ceylon, by the Rev. L. Ottley. Roman Fibula and Lachrymatories, from Pontesbury and Wroxe

ter, by the Rev. William Vaughan. Sixty skins of Birds, from Australia, presented by Major Wakefield, of Minworth, near Coleshill, Warwickshire; and various Books by Dr. Goldie, Mr. John Davies, Mr. T. C. Eyton, and Mr. W. A. Leighton.

May 3.-Dr. Du Gard, V. P., in the chair.-A letter from the Rev. Mr. Huntley, of Alberbury, was read, explanatory of the engines used in ancient warfare for propelling stone balls and other missiles, and illustrated with drawings of the three in most general use the mangonel, the tricolle, and the ribandequin.

Some brief remarks, by Mr. Henry Pidgeon, were next read, on the opening of a tumulus, called the Round Low, near Swinnerton, Staffordshire. The mound consisted of various kinds of stones, collected from the neighbourhood and promiscuously thrown toge ther. Some of these, which were of sandstone, appeared to have been subjected to the action of fire, and on their tops, as well as on all sides of the tumulus, lay bones, intermixed with charcoal. In the centre of the mound, large irregular sandstones, of from thirty inches to three feet in size, occurred, in an upright position, forming an octagon of about twenty feet in diameter. The soil within the stones, to the depth of three feet, consisted of mixed sands of different colours, below which were other large stones. As the investigation, which was undertaken by the occupier of the land for the mere purpose of rendering the mound available for cultivation, was not further prosecuted, it is quite evident that the proper deposit of the tumulus, which in most, if not in all, cases occurs at some depth below the level of the adjacent surface, remains yet unexplored. Similar tumuli, called the Saxon Low, Blake Low, White Low, and Barrow Bank, exist in the immediate vicinity.

An admirable Paper was next read by Mr. Thomas Blunt, of Shrewsbury, on the Iron Mines and Works of Shropshire. The author prefaced his observations with some concise historical notices, tracing the rise and progress of the manufacture of iron in England, from the earlier days of the ancient Britons-when this metal bore a comparatively high value, in consequence of the difficulty of reducing the ore-through the Saxon and chivalric ages when its manufacture into arms and armour attained to a high degree of perfection-down to the 16th century, when not fewer than 300 smelting furnaces were in operation, yielding annually 180,000 tons of metal. The fuel employed until 1615, when coke was first made from pit-coal, was charcoal, of which nearly a ton was requisite to reduce the same quantity of iron: and hence, doubtless, the scarcity of timber trees around our Shropshire iron-works; the localities of which still preserve in their names the remembrances of extensive woods and forests long since swept away: for instanceMadeley Wood, Donnington Wood, Dawley Wood, &c. From the period of this important discovery, little improvement occurred until the introduction of steam-engines enabled our English iron-masters to manufacture the present amazing quantity of 700,000 tons of iron annually.

The more profitable iron ores are of two kinds-the spatous and the argillaceous. The former is the richer, and affords a superior metal, and is largely smelted in the iron-works of Yorkshire and the north of England. The latter occurs in detached nodules of from two inches to a foot in diameter, imbedded in soft bluish clay, or shale, and generally contains a nucleus of portions of the animal or vegetable forms of the primeval ages. The author alluded to an interesting discovery which had been lately made in this ironstone in the vicinity of Madeley, in this county, of some undescribed species of coleopterous insects, of the forked antennæ family, one of which had been named Curculioides Ansticii, in honour of the discoverer, Mr. Anstice; and the other Curculioides Prestwichii, after Mr. Prestwich, a gentleman who has devoted great attention to the geology of the Shropshire coal-field.

The argillaceous iron-stone is usually of a brown or bluish-grey colour, and holds the metal in a state of protoxyde, varying from 25 to 60 and 70 per cent. The ore in Shropshire, in the neighbourhood of Wellington, Coalbrookdale, Broseley, and Shiffnal, is of this character; and occurs in continuous strata, varying in thickness, and more or less inclined to the plane of the horizon. The principal deposits of argillaceous ironstone in Shropshire, are in the coalmeasures, (although they frequently occur above them) in the strata of shale, clays, sandstone, and slate, alternating with coal. Extensive fields of this character occur between Wellington and Shiffnal; which are bounded on the east and north-east by a broad line of sand and calcareous free-stone of the upper formation, abounding with fossil stems of Calamites and Stigmaria.

The coal-mines of Shropshire have been extensively worked for several centuries; for Leland, in 1538, makes mention of the coalworks near Shiffnal and Madeley, and of their being entered by adits or levels in the side of the hill. Within the last forty or fifty years only, they have entered by shafts, or pits, and their contents raised perpendicularly.

The Shropshire iron-mines have, however, only been opened about 150 years, and their produce was, for a long period, very trifling. The Shropshire iron-masters have now between sixty and seventy blast-furnaces in constant operation, producing nearly seventy tons of iron per week.

The author next detailed the mode of reducing the ore, which is first roasted in heaps for five or six days, and thus deprived of its sulphur, carbonic acid, and other inflammable substances, and generally loses from twenty to thirty per cent. The furnace is then sufficiently heated with coal cinders, or coke, alone, and the charging or filling commences, in the proportion of four tons of coke, three tons of ore, and one of limestone, After the furnace is once heated, the filling may be continued at intervals for many years. The metal, when completely fused, is run into moulds, constituting the pigiron of commerce. In this operation, the coke not only acts as fuel, but attracts the oxygen from the ore, and enters into combination