246 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



sion of his conntenance, a striking resemblance to an en- 

 graving of a piece of sculpture, found near Palenque in Cen- 

 tral America, to which Dr. Bowditch had previously called the 

 attention of the Academy. 



Three hundred and fortieth meeting. 



December 3, 1850. — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



Mr. Everett, chairman of the committee appointed at the 

 last monthly meeting to address a letter on the subject of sus- 

 taining the Toronto Observatory, either to the American Min- 

 ister or the Royal Society, as they should deem most expedient, 

 stated that the committee had addressed a letter to the Royal 

 Society, recommending the continuance of the meteorological 

 and magnetical observations at the Toronto Observatory, for 

 another period of three years. 



Dr. Pierson exhibited to the Academy a large and valuable 

 specimen of gold recently brought from California. 



Mr. Alger exhibited several very remarkable crystals of 

 gold from California, and offered the following remarks in 

 illustration of them : — 



" The largest were octahedral crystals, simple or modified, and were 

 as perfectly formed as similar crystals of pleisto-magnetic iron, or 

 octahedral spindle. The most striking examples were three isolated 

 crystals, which without exhibited no portion of the usually adhering 

 quartz matrix. Their exact locality was not known, but the very 

 worn appearance presented by several of them indicated their erratic 

 or transported origin. The largest was three fourths of an inch across 

 the base, and the smallest one quarter of an inch. This last presents 

 four regular faces, with three of its solid angles extending out to points, 

 which, however, have become somewhat rounded by attrition. It exhib- 

 its no modifications ; but two of its faces are depressed or hollowed 

 ort, one of them by a very deep cavity, which extends not quite to the 

 edges of the planes, but so near to them as to leave a narrow ridge 

 or border all around the cavity, and parallel with its edges ; thus giving 



