1870.] NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 439 



could not be ascertained. Tn the head of a White Whale belong- 

 ing to the cabinet of McGill College, there are nine teeth in the 

 right lower-jaw and eight in the left. The teeth of the fossil, 

 judging from the size of the sockets, were longer than those of the 

 White Whale. In 1849 a small whale was discovered in Vermont 

 about twelve miles south of Burlington, in a railway cutting 

 through a deposit of clay of the same formation as that of Corn- 

 wall. Judging from the figures and descrii^tion published in 

 Silliman's Journal by the late Professor Thompson, there can be 

 little doubt that ours is the same species as the one described by 

 him under the name Beluga Vermontana. Another specimen 

 consistig of about half of the back bone was discovered several 

 years ago near the city of Montreal, and is now in the Museum of 

 the Geological Survey. The Cornwall locality is about half a 

 mile from the railway station, sixty feet above the St. Lawrence, 

 and over two hundred feet above the level of the sea." 



A paper on Canadian Diatoro.aceae, by W. Osier, was then read 

 by the Recording Seccretary. This will be found at page 142. 



The President^ in inviting a discussion on the phenomena 

 observed during the recent earthquake, said that there were 

 records published or preserved of the appearances observed durino- 

 83 earthquakes in Canada, and neighbouring parts of N. America. 

 A severe shock was felt in Canada in 1860, an account of which 

 might be found in the Canadian Naturalist for that years 

 Many of the phenomena noticed in 1870 were observed in the 

 shock of 1860. Judging from the facts on record, there would 

 seem to be a periodicity in earthquakes. They seem to occur 

 much oftener in autumn and winter than in spring or summer 

 and between the 60th or 70th years of a century. On this 

 ground he had stated that the shock of this year might prove to 

 be the beginning of a series, if the law of periodicity holds good. 

 A slight shock was however felt in Canada in the spring of 1864. 

 The President next referring to the causes which produce earth- 

 quakes, said that here there are no centres of active io^neous 

 agencies as in Southern Italy and elsewhere. He suggested the 

 idea that large masses of sediment are drained off by rivers from 

 this continent and deposited on the Atlantic coast, and when in 

 addition to this, a pressure amounting to many millions of tons 

 of atmospheric air is removed from the denuded portion, vibrations 

 occur from long continued tension of the earth's crust, and finally 

 a break takes place. It was found that during the last earthquake, 



