1896.] 'Jv)y [Furness. 



The Finance Committee made report that they had 

 examined the Treasurer's accounts, and found them correct. 

 The appropriations for the coming year were recommended, 

 and on motion approved bj the Society. 



The pending nominations were then read and spoken to, 

 and the ballots cast. 



New nominations 1364 to 1369 were then read. 



Mr. ]^rice then offered a resolution directing the printing of 

 the ballots for the election to be held January 1. 



The Tellers then reported that : 



2299. William Francis Magee, Princeton, N. J.; 



2300. a. Albert Lewis, Philadelphia ; 



2301. Benjamin W. Frazier, Bethlehem, Pa., 

 had been elected to membership. 



The rough minutes were then read and the Society 

 adjourned. 



GUmj)ses of Borneo. 



By William Henry Furness, 3rd, 31. D. 



{Read before The American Philosophical Society, December IS, 1896.) 



The island of Borneo, lying directly under the Equator, is the second 

 in size in the world (if we exclude Australia, to which, I believe, is gen- 

 erally given the dignity of being called a continent), Papua, or, as it is 

 now called, New Guinea, being the largest, with an area of 306,000 square 

 miles, while Borneo has an area of 286,000 square miles, or about that of 

 France. Along the coast, and indeed for many miles inland, the country 

 is flat and marshy, covered with a dense tangle of undergrowth, made up 

 of thorny palms, ferns, and creepers of all sorts, including the beautiful 

 variegated Nepenthes, or pitcher plant ; above this undergrowth, 

 which is dense to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, rise lofty, straight 

 Camphor, Gutta, Durian and Tapang trees, whose foliage, at least from 

 a distance, is hardly distinguishable from the common trees of our own 

 woods and forests ; perhaps the only features which distinguish the Bor- 

 nean jungle, seen at a distance, from our ordinary forests are the top- 

 most tufts of the Rattan palm, which is a creeper and forms a crown 

 on the tree top, whereof the unexpanded central leaf creates the sus- 

 picion that the indefatigable lightning-rod agent had paid a visit 



