183 



" Land and Water" „ the Editor. 



" Transactions and Proceedings of the Botanical 7 • exc i, ail « e 

 Society of Edinburgh." ) 



" The Monthly Microscopical Journal" from the Publisher. 



*' The American Naturalist," for Jan., 1871 in exchange. 



20 Slides of Spicules of various Gorgoniadse ... fiom Mr. A. C. Cole. 

 3 Slides of Ancient iridescent Glass, from the) ■»»- -p m -r, ew ; a 



Temple of Venus, Cyprus t i 



The thanks of the Club were unanimously voted to the donors. 



The following gentlemen were balloted for and duly elected members of the 

 Club : — Mr. Matthew Hawkins Johnson ; Mr. William Henry Thornthwaite, jun. 



Mr. J. R. Leifchild called the attention of the meeting to the subject of fossil 

 wood, which had greatly interested him for many years, and of which he ex- 

 hibited a series of 23 specimens, which he considered to be both historically and 

 intrinsically interesting. They were, he believed, some of the first specimens 

 ever cut into sections as microscopic objects, having been prepared by Mr. 

 Saunderson, of Edinburgh, a lapidary not much known to fame, but who was 

 the inventor of a method of cutting these sections bo thin as to allow of the 

 passage of light through them. They were cut for the better-known Mr. Nicol 

 — the inventor of the Nicol prism — and were 23 in number. A fossil tree was 

 discovered in 1826, at Craig-Leith quarry, near Edinburgh, lying slopingly in such 

 a manner as to appear to cut through several beds of sandstone of the carboniferous 

 series; a fact, which, at the time of its discovery, gave rise to several geological 

 disquisitions. It was further exposed in 1830, and in 1831 a supposed branch being 

 uncovered Mr. Nicol was then giving his attention to the subject of fossil woods, 

 and employed Mr. Saunderson to cut the specimens alluded to, and amongst which 

 were the four sections now exhibited, cut from the Craig-Leith tree. The tree was 

 now altogether gone, so that no more sections could be had, and the branch was 

 also gone. A few years afterwards Mr. Henry Witham, of Lartington, near 

 Durham, published a useful book on fossil woods, which contained some illus- 

 trations of sections of the Craig-Leith tree, and other trees or portions found 

 in the North of England, and of which the sections now placed before the 

 members were specimens. Mr. Witham did not appear to know much about the 

 species to which the Craig-Leith tree belonged, and it was called Pinites 

 Withami ; it is now recognised as Hadoxylon. In studying these fossil woods, 

 the changes made in nomenclature caused some difficulty and required research. 

 The sections, as microscopic objects, were very fine, and somewhat interesting, 

 as illustrating the minute structures of the Coniferse. Mr. Nicol was frequently 

 able to determine the character of the wood by the examination of sections 

 showing the arrangement of the disc, bearing woody tissue. Since that time the 

 study of fossil woods had very much advanced, but he thought that Mr. Nicol* s 

 name ought to be associated with it, because he was the first man who really 

 gave careful microscopic attention to the subject. One of the specimens upon 

 the table possessed a particular interest - it was called by Witham Anabathra 

 pulcherrima, but was, in reality, a stigmaria -the same root-like plant as is found 

 under clay beds in many coal deposits, with the sigillaria above them. This speci- 

 men of stigmaria showed very clearly the nature and structure Of this tree. 

 Eecently the microscope had been applied to the examination of other plants 

 found in our coal fields. Mr. Carruthers, Professor Williamson, and others, had 

 given much attention to this subject, and the result would doubtless be, that in 

 a few years they would possess a far more accurate knowledge of the internal struc- 



