24 



Dr. Pickering stated, that between Salem and Danvers 

 were two hills covered with boulders, and between them a 

 plain where no boulders were to be seen. The western hill 

 is of Sienite, the eastern of Greenstone, and the plain level. 

 He had been at loss, until this evening, to account for the 

 absence of boulders in this narrow plain, situated as it is 

 between the two steep hills, but he thought it probable now 

 that boulders would be found under the soil of this plain, 

 if it could be removed so as to expose the curved bed of 

 rock which must be the prolongation of the curved sides of 

 the hills. 



Dr. James Lewis, of Mohawk, N. Y., was chosen Cor- 

 responding Member of the Society. 



February 15, 1854. 



The President in the Chair. 



Mr. Bouve read extracts from the printed report of a 

 jury trial, which took place in Edinburgh during July and 

 August last. The case involved the right to work a certain 

 mineral as coal, in the lands of Torbanehill, Linlithgow 

 county, Scotland, commonly known as the Boghead gas 

 coal ; and the principal question upon which the whole case 

 turned was, whether this mineral substance was really a 

 coal, or whether it was bitumen, shale, clay, or other sub- 

 stance. The case showed to what extent the most eminent 

 scientific men may differ upon practical points in geology, 

 mineralogy, microscopy, and chemistry, and into what humi- 

 liating exhibitions they are sometimes drawn unawares. 



Prof. Wyman exhibited the stomach of a lama, which, by 

 the kindness of Fletcher Webster, Esq., he had had an op- 

 portunity of dissecting. 



