173 



The Treasurer notified the Society that the sum of 810,000 

 bequeathed to it by the Hon. Jonathan Phillips, had been 

 received, and was in process of investment. 



Mr. Dillaway, in behalf of the Publishing Committee, 

 stated that it was desirable to obtain some of the early 

 numbers of the Society's Journal and Proceedings, in order 

 to furnish complete sets to Societies and individuals, especi- 

 ally in foreign countries for purposes of exchange. He re- 

 quested members knowing where such numbers can be 

 procured to notify the Committee. 



Messrs. C. H. Hitchcock, Wilham F. Hall, and David 

 Thaxter, were elected resident members. 



AiJvil 17, 1861. 

 The President in the Chair. 

 Dr. John Bacon read the following : — 

 Note concerning the Cocoa-nut Pearl. By John Bacon, m.d. 



I have a few additional facts to present in regard to the cocoanut 

 pearl from Singapore, on which I made a communication in May, 

 1860. No botanical authority which I had then consulted gave any 

 account of such a concretion. A few months afterward, I found a 

 brief description in an article on calculi, by the chemist Fourcroy, in 

 the Annales de Chimie for 1 793. The specimens seen by Fourcroy 

 were so highly valued, that he was not permitted to use any portion 

 for analysis. The pubHcation of my communication of last May in 

 the Repertoire de Chimie, Paris, (for which I am indebted to IMr. F. 

 H. Storer,) elicited a notice from Professor Bleekrode of Holland, 

 who states in the Repertoire of December, 1860, that the cocoa-nut 

 pearl, though extremely rare, is well known in the East Indies, and 

 is described by the celebrated botanist Rumphius in the Herbarium 

 Amboinense ; also in the Nouveau Dictionnaire d' Histoire Naturelle, 

 Paris, 1818, a copy of which has been added to our library within a 

 few weeks, under the name of Mestiques, in which a brief abstract of 

 the account by Rumphius is given. The Hbrary of Harvard College 

 contains a copy of the Herbarium Amboinense, which I have con- 

 sulted. This work was pubHshed in 1741, and thirty-five years after 

 the death of Rumphius. 



Rumphius, who resided many years at Amboyna, gives a descrip- 

 tion of the cocoa-nut pearl under the synonyms of Calappites, Mestica 



