PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 47 
foot along the high road, where they found the Cat-mint (Nepeta 
cataria) locally abundant. 
The unfavourable weather has prevented the Society arranging another 
field day since the above. 
*.* The first of the winter evening meetings will take place on Tuesday, 
October 9th, when the President has invited the members to meet at his 
house. A paper will be read, and objects of interest exhibited. 
Uses or Anmats.—The following facts will give us some idea 
of the way in which the abundance of animal life affects human 
industry :— 
In 1855 we imported 26,500,000 goose and swan quills. In 
1856 we imported 2,188,737 squirrel skins. No monkey skins 
were worn as muffs before the Exhibition of 1851; now we im- 
port hundreds of thousands. This is bringing the African races 
more into contact with Europeans, and so furthering the work of 
civilisation. (It augurs ill however for the monkeys. ) 
Upwards of 100,000 ermine skins are imported annually ; 
15,000,000 leeches are annually used in this country, and 500 
tons of bees wax: 12,000 bears are killed every year for the sake 
of their skins. 
Dr. LANKESTER’S LecruREs. 
Ir would appear from a comparison of the observations of 
Messrs. Bousingault and Humboldt, separated by an interval of 
thirty years, that South America is gradually sinking, and if this 
process be continued, at some distant epoch it may even be sub- 
merged. The observations show that the altitudes of the Andes 
were less when taken the second time ; and these results are con- 
firmed by the fact that the snow-line in this range of mountains, 
has, in the interval referred to, apparently risen. 
Dr. LarpNeEr. 
Tue system of the universe forms one grand complicated piece 
of celestial machinery ; circle within circle, wheel within wheel, 
eycle within cycle ; revolutions so swift, as to be completed in a 
few hours! movements so slow, that their mighty periods are only 
counted by millions of years. Are we to believe that the Divine 
Architect constructed this admirably adjusted system to wear out 
and to fall in ruins, even before one single revolution of its com- 
plex scheme of wheels had been performed? No; I see the 
mighty orbits of the planets slowly rocking to and fro, their 
figures expanding and contracting, their axes revolving in their 
vast periods ; but stability is there. Every change shall wear 
away and after sweeping through the grand cycle of cycles, the 
wholegsystem shall return to its primitive condition of perfection 
and. beauty. Orzps oF HEAVEN. 
