223 



science, who had conceived that their work lay in the objective and 

 material world and not in that looking-glass of the world, the mind 

 of man. He could conceive no more interesting field for investiga- 

 tion than the earlier mind of man, when he had no regular means 

 of coming at the truth by a systematic making of parallels to get 

 at it, he had to make a series of guesses, and in these guesses 

 there seemed to have been a kind of struggle for existence. Those 

 which approved themselves for the time to the bulk of mankind 

 had lived to the present time. Therein seemed to him to be very 

 great interest. He certainly was not prepared to find that evening 

 that so great an analogy was to be established between what was 

 said in those times, and what the latest scientific investigations had 

 laid down, and this appeared to promise more results in future. 

 The scientific movement had despised the earliest action of the 

 human mind. Livy had been despised, and Herodotus, and the 

 Old Testament had been spoken of as a collection of old wives' 

 fables. But now Herodotus had been reinstated by the Syrian 

 discoveries, and the Old Testament year by year was being con- 

 firmed by some newly discovered fact, the Moabite stone for 

 example. 



The Chairman referred to the weather during the Bath races, 

 which was certain to be wet or cold, and the races were held about 

 the time at which the " icy Saints' days" fell, the 11th, 12th, and 

 13th of May. This he thought a remarkable coincidence. He 

 also referred to what was known among sportsmen as " Woodcock 

 Sunday," a name given to the Sunday on which the lesson referring 

 to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego was read, the reading of 

 which was taken by sportsmen as an indication of the coming of 

 woodcock shooting. He did not know the origin of the name. 



The second evening meeting was on the 18th of January, when 

 Mr. Broome continued the subject of Mycology, which he com- 

 menced last year under the title of " Fungi found in the neighbour- 

 hood of Bath." This time he selected the Gasteromycetes ; fungi 

 distinguished by a fructifying surface contained in closed cells, 

 producing naked spores seated on sporophores, in contradistinction 

 to those whose hymenium is exposed to the air as in the Agarics. 

 For the details of this elaborate paper (vide page 188^1. 



E 



