1 08 Mb. W. Keddie on the Early History a/nd Proceedings of the Socidy. 



College of Edinburgh, where they were shown by Dr. Fleming to the 

 writer in June last. In the same year, 1808, an animal of a similar 

 kind was seen by Mr. M'Lean, the parish clergyman of Eigg, on the 

 coast of Coll, near the Isle of Canna, one of the western islands of 

 Scotland. The animal followed the boat into the mouth of a creek, 

 and appears to have frightened the worthy clergyman very much. 

 He was also seen by the crews of thirteen fishing boats, who were 

 much terrified, and hastened to the shore as fast as possible. 



It was in 1810 that Dr. Watt proposed to the Water Company the 

 plan of connecting the filters on the south side of the Clyde with the 

 engine on the north side, by means of a flexible pipe carried across the 

 river. The execution of the plan was confided to the celebrated James 

 Watt, then at Soho, and who accomplished the object by constructing 

 and laying down the Flexible Water Main, the principle of which, as 

 he mentioned to Mr., afterwards Sir John Robison, he " deduced from 

 the mechanism of the lobster's tail." 



The formation of a tunnel under the Thames had been projected at 

 this early period, and a plan proposed for the purpose by Mr. P. Fleming, 

 one of the members, was discussed by the Society in 1810. The first 

 notice of Geological Science is minuted in tliis year's proceedings. Mr. 

 Geo. Lumsden exhibited a portion of a petrified tree taken out of a 

 quarry near Sauchiehall, which appears to have excited much interest, 

 as the minute bears that " the members are very much pleased with 

 this attention of Mr. Lumsden." Dr. Watt proposed a method of pro- 

 ducing cold, by substituting for Leslie's plan of freezing water by the 

 air-pump, the process of producing a vacuum by filling a vessel with 

 steam and then condensing it. 



In 1811 there were frequent readings and conversations in the absence 

 of formal essays, and it was arranged that the subject should be fixed 

 upon at one meeting and discussed the next, so as to afford the members 

 an opportunity of prepai'ing themselves by pi'evious reading and inquiry. 

 The Society appears to have instituted an investigation into the condi- 

 tion of the health of the city before and after the introduction of water 

 by the Water Company ; but the result is not stated in the minutes, 

 being probably detailed in a separate memorandum book, to which 

 frequent reference is made as containing digests of the papers and reports 

 read before the Society, but which seems to have been lost. 



In 1812, Mr. Freeland produced part of a correspondence with the 

 celebrated Mr. Smeaton, respecting a mode of working under water. 

 This year there was much discussion on the art of memory, which had 

 been reduced to a system by Professor Fenaigle, whose Mnemonical 

 principles were expounded in an essay by Mr. Denholm, and at a subse- 



