Ixiv iproceedinifs. 



Mr. Kenneth McKean, In conveying the thanks of the meeting 

 to Mr. Lovett for his excellent address, your President alluded to 

 the still more recent improvements in lamps, e.g., duplex and 

 regenerative burners, pointing out that these proceeded on the 

 lines of increasing the temperature of the flame, since the hotter 

 the flame the larger was the proportion of the energy trans- 

 formed into light as compared with that wasted as dark heat. 



At the meeting on Nov. 20th, Mr. Wm. WhitaUer, F.R.S., of 

 the Geological Survey, submitted to the Club a series of records 

 of well-borings in Surrey, which will be published in our ' Trans- 

 actions ' (Trans., Art. 117). He made some remarks upon cer- 

 tain of the sections, especially upon that at East Horsley, which 

 had pierced the whole thickness of the chalk, here considerably 

 greater than is usual in the London area ; and upon the well at 

 Richmond, where a fair quantity of water was obtained from 

 galleries driven in the chalk beneath the Tertiary beds, one of 

 these galleries having, in fact, reached the base of the Thanet 

 Sand from below. 



Mr. A. Lncas exhibited seed-vessels of Arum Dracuncuhts. 



The President showed Nostoc commune (from Riddlesdown), a 

 gelatinous alga, which appears suddenly in masses on calcareous 

 soil after heavy rain ; also a fossil lobster {Thenops scyllariformis) 

 found by Mr. C. Hehner in the Park Hill railway- cutting. 



The President read a paper entitled " Habits and Habitats of 

 Plants; some Remarks on Superficial Resemblances between 

 Plants of Different Affinities," in which he pointed out how 

 plants belonging to widely different orders, but adapting them- 

 selves to similar modes of life, had undergone modification on 

 parallel lines. This was exemplified by reference to leafless 

 root-parasites, to the plants with quill-like leaves which grow on 

 the gravelly bottoms of mountain lakes, to the plants which grow 

 submerged in water and to those which float on the surface, and 

 to twining, climbing, succulent, bulbous, and alpine plants. 

 Dried specimens of the plants referred to were shown in illustra- 

 tion. (This paper is published in the ' Transactions,' Art. 118.) 



On Dec. 18th Mr. Murton Holmes read a paper on " The 

 Nutrition of Plants." He first described the cell -structure and 

 nutritive processes in ordinary green plants, and then spoke of 

 the special processes of nutrition in certain groups of plants, as 

 saprophytes, carnivorous plants, parasites, and plants which live 

 together in mutually beneficial association (symbiosis). The 

 paper was illustrated by some excellent diagrams, and by micro- 

 scopic slides exhibited by several members ; and was followed by 

 discussion. (It is published in the 'Transactions,' Art. 119.) 



Besides the ordinary meetings of the Club, a lecture, on April 

 8rd, by the Rev. H. N. Hutchinson, B.A., F.G.S., was kindly 



