540 



Stated Meeting, Decemher 18, 1868. 



Present, sixteen members. 



Prof. John C. Cresson, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



A letter accepting membership was received from Mr. O. C. 

 Marsh, dated Yale College, New Haven, December 10, 1868. 



Letters of acknowledgment were received from the Royal 

 Society Upsal, Linnean Society London, Historical Society 

 Philadelphia, and Boston Public Library. 



Donations for the Library were received from the Societies 

 at Moscow, Riga, Upsal, Freiburg i B. and Leeds, the Muse- 

 ums of Natural History at Paris and Buenos Ayres, the R. I. 

 G. B., Royal Geopraphical, Chemical, Linnean and Zoological 

 Societies in London, the Historical Society of Lancashire, 

 Boston Natural History Society and Public Library, United 

 States Mint, Department of Education at Washington, State 

 Geologists of Iowa, and catalogues from foreign booksellers. 



A donation for the Cabinet, was received through Dr. Hay- 

 den, from Mr. Blackmore : 32 Russian medals electrotyped 

 and distributed by the British Museum. 



The Librarian, for Mr. William Clark of Philadelphia, laid 

 before the members a lead pencilled cop}^ of the so called 

 human writing on the roof of a coal mine at Hammondville, 

 on the Ohio river, which had given origin to so many absurd 

 newspaper articles in all parts of the United States. 



This quasi inscription consists of a single row of twelve leaf 

 scars of a species of Sigillaria, out of which the imagination 

 finds no difficulty in manufacturing repetitions of the letters B. 

 D. C. 0. and the figure S. 



The Secretary read the following extract from a letter 

 signed Jas. F. Latham, M. D., dated Leechville, Beaufort Co., 



