iV PROCEEDINGS. 
The February meeting was occupied with botanical subjects. Notes 
were given on the botanical and commercial history of Nova Scotian 
foxberries, an export trade in which has been developed to a surprising 
extent within the last few years, especially in Guysborough County. 
Mr. G. H. Cox, B. A., communicated a list of plants collected in and 
around the Town of Shelburne, on ;the Atlantic Coast of our Province, 
in the years from 1890 to 1893. The Institute had previously given 
space in its Transactions (vol. v1, pp. 209-300, and pp. 283-285) to two 
similar lists of native plants of Truro, in Colchester County, by Dr. 
George G. Campbell, which are supplemented this year by a list of 
additional species collected in that locality by Percy J. Smith. Such 
lists as these, when prepared with care, form valuable material for the 
preparation of local floras, as well as for Provincial or more general 
works, and the opportunity should not be lost to call attention to the 
substantial service that may be rendered to botanical science by the pre- 
paration of such lists for localities throughout the Province by those 
who have opportunities, by residence or otherwise, for local observation 
and collection. 
The March meeting was taken up with astronomical and chemical 
subjects. Mr. Cameron, Principal of Yarmouth Academy, whose 
papers on astronomical observation, published in the periodical press at 
different times, have so greatly interested the general public, gave us his 
notes of observations on Venus. These notes may be regarded as a 
sequel to his previous papers on that planet, of which he has for some 
years made a special study, with regard more particularly to her visibility 
from the earth under the changing conditions of elongation from the 
sun, brillianey, position, and state of our atmosphere. It seems desir- 
able, therefore, to advert briefly to the general results reached by the 
author in each of his two previous papers. 
In the first volume of the second series of our Transactions, Session 
1892-93 (pp. 148-159), Mr. Cameron dealt with the enquiry: Ou how 
many (astronomical) days in the year may Venus be seen with the naked 
eye? The answer to this question involved a discussion of the motion 
and changes of the planet and of the geometrical conditions upon which 
her brilliancy depends. By constant watchfulness he succeeded in 
recording a valuable series of observations at Yarmouth, while notes of 
others made at Marseilles were obtained from M. Bruguiere, who had 
been engaged on the very same work for several years before. During 
