MIDLAND UNION GENERAL BUSINESS. 153 



During the winter evenings, lectures, and the exhibition and ex- 

 planation of specimens, with an occasional conversazione, have 

 continued and supplemented the work of the summer months. Here 

 again, an interchange of lectures would be beneficial in many ways; 

 the Council would request that all gentlemen who are willing to read 

 papers, or give lectures, should send in their names to the Hon. Sec. 

 of the Union, who would keep a register of them and communicate a 

 list to the local Secretaries. 



By five or six of the Societies the evening lectures have been 

 organized so as to form a course on some branch of Natural 

 History ; or such a connected course, of a simple and elemen- 

 tary character, has been given in addition to the regular evening 

 meetings of the Society ; in this manner courses on Geology have been 

 delivered to the Geological Section of the Birmingham Natural History 

 Society, and to the Evesham Field Club, a course on the Invertebrata 

 to the Cheltenham Natural Science Society, etc. The success of these 

 courses depends largely on their being couched in clear and simple 

 language, and on their being well illustrated by specimens, diagrams, 

 and the microscope ; it is not necessary, indeed it is almost impossible, 

 that the whole of the course should be given by one person ; but by 

 six or eight members joining together the toil is lessened while the 

 sum of the knowledge given forth remains the same. 



The Council notice with approval a plan for the encouragement of 

 field-work, which has been adopted by the Northamptonshire Naturalists' 

 Society. Each working member is provided with a card, stating that 

 the bearer is a member of the Society, and that permission has been 

 given by the landowners of the district (whose names are printed on 

 the card) to pass over and examine their demesnes for scientific pur- 

 poses. The Council think that this plan might be more generally 

 adopted, as keepers and others naturally look with suspicion upon 

 casual visitors. 



Botany. — Two local floras are preparing for publication ; Mr. 

 Bagnall's Flora of Warwickshire has been appearing for some time in 

 the pages of the Midland Naturalist. If a suificient number of sub- 

 scribers can be obtained it is proposed to publish this valuable work 

 in a separate form ; it will constitute a volume of about 450 pages. 



The Flora of Leicestershire is being prepared by a Committee of the 

 Leicester Literary and Philosophical • Society, mainly under the 

 direction of Mr. F. T. Mott. It is impossible to value too highly the 

 publication of carefulh' prepared local lists, such as these two books 

 will be. They will not only throw light on many botanical problems 

 of great interest, but they will furnish an aid to local workers and 

 give a stimulus to local work, which should cause us to prize them 

 highly. It is much to be desired that a flora of each county within 

 the limits of the Midland Union should be carefully worked out. 



Geology. — The problem of the Glacial drift continues to prove itself 

 one of the most difficult questions in geology. Probably local workers 

 will do better to attack it piece-meal, or by sections, rather than to 

 attempt its consideration as a whole at once. The existence, dimen- 

 sions, Ac, of large boulders is a point of great interest, and one which 

 it is comparatively simple and easy to work out. 



During the year the quartzite pebbles which form so remarkable a 

 feature in the drift between the Thames Valley on the south and the 

 Pennine Range on the north, have been in part investigated;* they 



* " On the Quartzite Pebbles found in the Drift and in the Trias of the 

 Midlands, and on their probable derivation." By W. Jerome Harrison, F.G.S., 

 in the Proceediues of the BirininKham Philosophical Society, Vol. 11. 



