208 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



digestion and respiration being easily observed ; and the Zonites 

 nitididus was mentioned as an especially good specimen. 



An interesting discussion followed the reading of this paper, and 

 the President then gave an account of the reproduction and develop- 

 ment of snails. 



A meeting of the club was held on December 21, which was some- 

 what special, ladies being admitted, and a large number of microscopes 

 exhibited. An address was delivered by William Carruthers, Esq., 

 F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S., on " The Earliest Fruit Eemains of the Earth." 

 The lecturer restricted his remarks to the vegetation of the Palaeozoic 

 or primary rocks, and described in detail the gymnospermous plants 

 found in these rocks, and also the coniferous trunks found in sand- 

 stone beds near Edinburgh, a specimen of which, 4 feet in diameter, 

 and 40 feet in length, is preserved at the British Museum. Fruits 

 found in the quartzose rocks at St. Etienne, near Paris, were also 

 described; these belong to the Taxineous group of trees, and are 

 allied to the fruit of the SaJishuria adiantumfolium — a tree common in 

 London, but a native of Japan. Passing now to the consideration of 

 the cryptogamous plants found in the coal-measures, Mr. Carruthers 

 described the cones which are the fruit of a tree called Lepidodendron, 

 and compared them, by the aid of diagrams, with the Lycopodium and 

 Selaginella of the present day. Other fossil cones were compared with 

 the Equisetum, or horse-tails, to which they are allied in structure. 

 The ferns found in the coal-measures were then described, and Mr. 

 Carruthers alluded to his discovery of a specimen exhibiting the 

 peculiar structure of the fruit. The fossil ferns were compared with 

 the modern Polypody and the Tunbridge filmy fern. In conclusion, 

 the lecturer gave an account of a fern found by Professor Edward 

 Forbes in the Devonian rocks of Ireland, which agrees exactly with 

 living ferns. 



The address of Mr. Carruthers was throughout listened to with the 

 closest attention ; and at its close the audience displayed great interest 

 in the various objects illustrative of the subject, which were arranged 

 systematically and exhibited under the microscopes of the members. 



