xxvi. Proceedings. \_May gth, 1922.. 



seas are areas of depression, but the fact that the stratified 

 rocks forming the land have been formed mainl^^ under the sea, 

 and that the characteristic contours of the land, due to subaerial 

 agents of attack — hills, ravines, valleys — occupy the floor of the 

 sea (down to at least 1,000 fathoms in the case of the submerged 

 canyon of the Congo), prove that land and sea have changed 

 places. 



The distribution of plants and animals in the geological record 

 proves this to have been the case. The British Isles were a 

 portion of the Continent in the Pleistocene Age and have 

 assumed their form from depressions beneath sea-level. They 

 were continental also in the Pliocene Age. In the Miocene and 

 Eocene Ages they were linked with North America by a tract 

 of forest-covered land extending from the Orkneys to Iceland 

 and Greenland, now dividing the depths of the North Atlantic 

 from the Arctic Ocean. 



This ihtory of the earth's crust holds the field at the present 

 time. It is not shaken by Dr. Wegener's speculation, because 

 the latter is founded upon assumptions negatived by the facts, 

 that the crust is discontinuous, that the existing land masses 

 have split oS and floated away from one another on a basaltic 

 magma more or less fluid, along with their fauna and flora, and 

 that the lands on both sides of the Atlantic fit into each other 

 like the pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, and originally formed parts 

 of a primordial continent. 



General Meeting, May 9th, 1922. 

 Mr. T. A. Coward, M.Sc, F.Z.S., F.E.S. {President), in the 



Chair. 

 The following gentlemen were elected Ordinary Members of 

 the Society : — 



Percy G. Jackson, F.I.C., Analytical and Consulting Chemist. 

 IS, St. Clement's Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester. GreoTge 

 Alfred Eea Foster, B.A. (Cambridge), Research Physicist. The Shirley 

 Institute, East Didsbvry, Manchester. James Peter Andrews, B.Sc. 

 (London), Research Physicist. The Shirley Institute, East Didshuryr 

 Manchester. Albert Edward Owen, B.Sc. (London), Research Physicists 

 The Shirley Institute, East Didsbury^ Manchester. 



Ordinary Meeting, May 9th, 1922. 

 Mr. T. A. Coward, M.Sc, F.Z.S., F.E.S. [President), in the 



Chair. 

 Mr. Donald A. Mackenzie read a paper entitled : — 



" The Scottish Pork Taboo." 

 This paper is printed in full in the Memoirs. 



