46 Linmean Society. 



amount, and will then admit of easy correction by a fluid lens, 

 without requiring the inconvenient curvatures for its surfaces which 

 are now necessary. This construction will also be attended with 

 the advantage of requiring a much smaller thickness in the plate- 

 glass, and will thus facilitate the selection of proper pieces of glass 

 for being worked into an object lens. 



From all these considerations, the author entertains the confi- 

 dent expectation of being able, with proper assistance, to construct 

 a telescope of 2 feet aperture and 24 feet in length, which 

 would as much exceed the most powerful telescopes of the pre- 

 sent day, as these exceed the refractors which existed at the 

 close of the last century. 



LINN^AN SOCIETY. 



Nov. 2. The session was commenced by the reading a part of 

 a paper, by John Hogg, Esq. F.L.S. (continued at the subsequent 

 meetings), intitled Observations on some of the Classical Plants of 

 Sicily. The author, who had made ageneral collection of the plants 

 of the island in 1826, in consequence of the recent publication of 

 the Sicilian Flora, of Presl and Gussone, limits himself in this com- 

 munications to the classical plants, which he has illustrated by very 

 interesting citations from Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, the 

 Syracusan poets Theocritus and Moschus, and other writers of 

 antiquity. 



Nov. 16. Read, An account by Lieut.-colonel Bowler, accom- 

 panied by drawings, of a curious species of Palm, apparently iden- 

 tical with the Doum Palm of Upper Egypt (Hyphcsne coriacea of 

 Gaertner), found in the Cutcherry Compound at Masulipatam, and 

 also near Kongaram in the Teloogoo Compound, both in the Go- 

 vernment of Madras. The trees were from 18 to 50 feet high, 

 with their stems generally twice forked, but some were found with 

 an elongated simple stem having as many as six heads. The fronds 

 are used by the natives for thatching, and the hard fibrous nuts, 

 when steeped in water and beaten, are made into brushes for white- 

 washing their houses. Colonel Bowler observes, ' The Sunasies, 

 whenever they can procure them, carry the stalks of the fronds in 

 their hands, and impose upon the ignorant natives, by attributing 

 to them many surprising virtues, and pretending they cut them 

 from a curious tree which was in a large forest at an incalculable 

 distance. 



" The inhabitants of Kongaram and the neighbouring hamlets 

 look upon this tree as the guardian of their jungle, and hold it in 

 some degree of veneration ; conceiving it has, as I am told, its San- 

 scrit name Kulpa Vroochum* implies, the power of fulfilling the de- 

 sires and wishes of mankind, at least such as from firmness of heart 

 and morals have faith in its supposed virtues." 



* A holy tree in the gardens of Tnclra. It is said in the Pooranas to have 

 been found in the ocean when Krishna churned it, and that it was given to 

 Jndra, telling him that it would grant the wishes of all beings. 



The 



