Proceedings. cv. 



students, professors, teachers, the medical profession, and 

 others interested in the progress of natural science or engaged 

 in higher education. 



Mr. W. T. Suffolk then delivered a most instructive and 

 interesting lecture upon " Abbe's diffraction experiments and 

 their bearing on Microscopic Vision." The lecture was beau- 

 tifully illustrated by numerous diagrams. 



An interesting discussion followed, in which Mr. Lovett, 

 Mr. Stanley, and the lecturer took part. 



A cordial vote of thanks was passed to Mr. Suffolk. 



Mr. Henry Turner then communicated some notes upon 

 " Some Vegetable Remains which he had found in the railway 

 cutting at Park Hill," as follows : — Among other indications of 

 the nearness of land to the estuary or sea in which the beds of 

 the Park Hill series were deposited, nothing, to my mind, is 

 clearer than the large quantity of vegetable remains found in 

 the series from the chalk upwards. It is true that, either from 

 the nature of the material of which the beds are composed, or 

 from the unquiet state in which they were deposited, these 

 plant remains are not now in a good state of preservation ; 

 still they are in some places sufficiently well preserved to 

 enable one to form some notion of the kind of plants that 

 grew in the locality, and consequently of the nature of the 

 climatal and other conditions in which they grew. I have 

 been so fortunate as to be able to collect a very interesting 

 collection of leaves from the blue clay brought up from No. i 

 shaft, nearest the Addiscombe Road. When the clay was first 

 brought to the surface so tenacious was it that delamination or 

 splitting was impossible, but on becoming dry it became hard, 

 and although it did not readily split of itself, as clay quietly 

 deposited will do, into thin laminae, it split in a rough sort of 

 way into layers, though often across, exposing the plants 

 deposited. Unfortunately the materials excavated are so 

 jumbled together that only now and then, and here and there, 

 could a lump of splitable clay be met with, and now the 

 material is being fast taken away, otherwise I hoped that we 

 might be able to obtain a rich collection of fossil plants from 

 these Park Hill beds. Not being a fossil botanist, I am unable 

 to determine with any degree of certainty the character of 

 these leaves, but I think there is no doubt that among them 

 are specimens of oak, the sinuous outline bemgwell preserved, 

 as well as willow and poplar. There is also one beautiful 

 leaf in the collection whose spiny margin is almost as sharp 

 as when the leaf fell from the plant. In the same clay is also a 

 beautiful little tooth of a species of shark. I hope some of 

 our members will be better able than I am to determine the 

 genera of these leaves. 



