446 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



5tli monthly meeting, held Feb. 27th, 1871, the President in 

 the chair. 



Messrs. C. McNab, John Robertson, and Scott Barlow, were 

 elected ordinary members, and Prof. J. Wajeika, of St. Peters- 

 burgh, Russia, a corresponding member of the Society. 



Principal Dawson exhibited some new specimens in Fossil 

 Botany. The following is an abstract of his remarks on them. 



The first point mentioned was the occurrence of spore-cases in 

 the Devonian Shales of Kettle Point, Lake Huron, and in several 

 coals. Details of this part of the communication have been already 

 printed in this volume. 



The author next referred to the discovery of specimens indicat- 

 ing the existence of three or four species of Tree-ferns in the De- 

 vonian of New York and Ohio. He had described last year in 

 memoir contributed to the Royal Society of London two kinds oi 

 stems surrounded with aerial roots, which he believed to be tree- 

 ferns. They were from the collection of Prof. Hall, of Albany. 

 More recently he had received from Prof. Newberry of New York, 

 a specimen collected by Rev. Mr. Lockwood from the same loca- 

 lity with Prof. Hall's specimens, which shewed the upper part of a 

 stem with five leaf stocks attached to it. This he had named 

 Caulopteris Lochicoodi. Three other specimens collected by Prof. 

 Newberry in Ohio indicated the existence of three distinct species 

 belonging to two genera. The two most important had been named 

 by Prof. Newberry, Caulopteris antiqua and Protopteris peregrina. 

 They are fiom the carboniferous limestone, and thus carry down 

 tree-ferns to the bottom of the middle Devonian. One of them 

 has the cellular structure and vascular bundles in such preserva- 

 tion as to show their microscopic structure, which is precisely 

 similar to that of modern ferns. Descriptions of these plants will 

 probably appear in the proceedings of the Geological Society of 

 London, and in the forthcoming Report on the Geology of Ohio, 

 by Prof. Newberry. 



After the reading of the paper, Dr. T. Sterry Hunt made some 

 remarks on the subject, and gave an interesting account of the 

 chemical composition of spore cases, and of the cuticle and 

 cortical layer of plants generally. 



Mr. A.R. C. Selwyn, Director of the Geological Survey of Cana- 

 da, read a paper " On the Occurrance of Diamonds in New South 

 AVales," by Mr. Norman Taylor, late of the Geological Survey of 

 Victoria, and Professor Thompson, of the L^niversity of Sydney. 



