332 president's address. 



The Fifth and Last Meeting of tlie season was appointed to be 

 held at Widdrington and Chibburn, on September 16th, but, from 

 the awful visitation of cholera prevailing at this period, there 

 was present only one member of the Club,* whom, had he been 

 here to-day, I should have requested to favour you with any ob- 

 servations he may have made in his solitary excursion, for I know 

 that he is a very accurate observer, and has already, I believe, re- 

 corded many interesting discoveries which he has made in the 

 departments of botany and geology; and he has especially attended 

 to the indications which occur in the north of the county, of the 

 former existence of glaciers, which appear to have had so much 

 influence in the distribution of the Boulders which cover so much 

 of the country, and probably of many of the banks of gravel, the 

 remains of ancient moraines ; and I have little doubt, that, when 

 glaciers existed to any great extent, or when the whole of the 

 land was covered with a coating of ice, like Greenland at the 

 present day, of which there is, I think, much evidence to be 

 found, that great part of the soil and subsoil, now covering the 

 subjacent strata, was formed by the destruction, by attrition, of 

 the rocks over which that icy covering was constantly moving ; 

 and by this action also, I have little doubt, that the undulations 

 of the surface of the land were considerably modified. 



Mr. Joshua Alder has favoured me with a note of the following 

 interesting discoveries, made by himself in the autumn of the 

 past year, when he got, at Cullercoats, a new species of Eolis. 

 Two specimens were obtained from small zoophytes, brought in 



near to the bed of the stream. The whole of the party were considerably ia 

 advance of my niece and myself; and as we were leisurely walking up the 

 ascending road, she said to me suddenly, " here is the Wild Balsam ;" and sure 

 enough, at about two yards' distance, was a fine plant of it in full flower. This 

 she at once gathered ; but we looked, in vain, for others at this spot ; and 

 being, as I observed above, considerably behind the other members of the Club, 

 who were hastening on to the inn, at Haydon Bridge, we did not search the 

 upper part of the wood. She was well acquainted with the species, having 

 collected examples of it in the south of England. On reaching H aydon Bridge, 

 she gave the greater part of the plant to the botanists of the party, and after- 

 wards deposited a specimen in the Herbarium of the Natural History Society, 

 as a memento of the discovery. 



I am. Dear Sir, 



Yours truly. 

 The Secretary of the GEORGE WAILES. 



Tyne&ide Naturalists' Field Club. 



* Mr. Tate, of Alnwick. 



