88 The Scottish Naturalist. 



palaeontologists, of positively asserting as a known fact the geo- 

 logical age of organisms from beds of which the geological 

 position is not clearly determined, is very much to be deprecated.' 

 — Communicated. 



MEETINGS AND PKOCEEDINGS OE SCOTTISH SCIENTIFIC 

 SOCIETIES. 



[Notices of meetings for insertion in the Scottish Naturalist should be sent to 

 the Editor before the commencement of the month preceding date of 

 issue. If later, they will be held over till the next number. Secretaries 

 of Scotch Scientific Societies will much assist the Editor if they will send 

 abstracts of meetings for publications.] 



Reports of meetings of the Aberdeen Natural History Society and of the 

 Dundee Naturalists' Society have to be held over till next number through 

 pressure on space. 



BANFFSHIRE FIELD CLUB.— -January 29. — Mr. Home, of the Scottish 

 Geological Survey, addressed the meeting on the geological formation of the 

 northwest of Sutherland shire. He narrated the views expressed by geologists 

 from M'Culloch downwards, and gave a resume of the arguments pro and con. 

 He then proceeded to detail the results arrived at by himself and Mr. Peach ; 

 and stated that Professor Nicol's views had proved to be well founded, though 

 for a time set aside by Murchison's adverse opinion. 



Mr. Home thereafter reported on the geological specimens in the Banff 

 Museum. 



DOLLAR LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY.-; January 14.— 

 Mr. Thorn, Principal of Dollar Institution, lectured on Our Prehistoric 

 Ancestors. In the course of his address he summarised clearly the con- 

 clusions now generally entertained in regard to the origin and past history of 

 the earth, more especially in the later period, as shown by Kent's cavern and 

 other localities in which recent fossils have been found. The lessons drawn from 

 all sources concerning prehistoric man in Britain were summed up in : — " We 

 have no evidence to show that he was anatomically different from the man of 

 to-day. He was an expert hunter, and able even to attack such animals as 

 the mammoth and rhinoceros. He was armed with spears, tipped with flint 

 and bone, and with daggers of reindeer antler. The handles of his weapons 

 were often beautifully carved. With all this artistic taste, however, he seems 

 to have been utterly devoid of anything like civilisation, lived like a beast of 

 prey, entirely upon wild animals, and for countless ages made no more im- 

 pression upon the earth than one of the victims of his well-aimed stone or flint- 

 pointed spear." 



February 4. — Rev. Mr. Paul lectured on Castle Campbell, a former 

 stronghold of the Argyle family among the Ochils, and reviewed its past history 

 and fortunes. 



