ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. 



1875-6. 



September qth. 



ANNUAL MEETING. -- MR. C POTTER ON "THE 

 SO-CALLED FOREST BEDS." 



Mr. Dennant, the President, returned thanks for his election, 

 and expressed a hope that the progress of the Society during the year 

 •just begun would be very real, and that the efforts of the Members 

 would end in even greater usefulness than hitherto. He also spoke 

 briefly in favour of very short papers by Members who felt some 

 diffidence in reading long ones at their ordinary meetings ; and 

 expressed the pleasure he felt in being associated on the Committee 

 with their two able Hon. Secretaries, than whom they could not find 

 better were they to search the country through. 



Mr. Potter explained that what he should say would refer 

 principally to the Cheshire shore, not so much because the beds were 

 confined to that coast, as because they were seen there to greater 

 advantage than in any other part of the country. At one time he 

 believed that the whole of the forestal remains so largely exposed on 

 the Cheshire shore, and to be found in corresponding beds in nearly 

 the whole of the marsh lands and river valleys of Great Britain, 

 Ireland, and in many parts of the North of Europe, germinated, grew, 

 and decayed, where they were now found ; but having accidentally 

 come upon a small unresinous fir in an undecayed state, underlying 

 the bole of a large. oak, both of which were firmly embedded in their 

 surrounding matrix, a doubt at once arose in his mind whether his 



