Mb. W. Keddie on the Early History and Proceedings of the Society. 109 



quent meeting by the Professor himself, who was then teaching his 

 system in Glasgow. 



The proceedings of the year 1813 contain a brief notice of another 

 geological specimen, obtained from Stonelaw coal pit, near Eutherglen, 

 and described as a "coaly schistus," with 216 marks arranged in nine 

 lines. It was probably a specimen of sigillaria or lepidodendron, but 

 the minute states that it was a leaf "of a plant to the members 

 present unknown." 



In the midst of graver investigations, Dr. Watt is noticed as having 

 shown to the Society a drawing of " an improved tobacco pipe for voiding 

 the smoke with more facility than the common tobacco pipe, and so as 

 to keep the apartment free from the fumes." He also read an essay 

 on Miracles, " particularly accounting for the ocular deception which 

 took place some years ago in Italy, when certain images were thought 

 to have opened and shut their eyes ! " The winking Madonna of Rimini 

 is not therefore a new invention. 



At this period, Mr, Robert Hastie, then at Hahfax, N.S., cor- 

 responded with the Society, sending notices of the natural history and 

 geography of that country. 



Dr. Watt having resorted to Bute in 1816 for the recovery of his 

 health, returned to the Society with a description of the Vitrified Fort 

 the southern extremity of the island ; also, specimens of " pumice stone" 

 from Barone Hill, which he ascribed to a volcano supposed by him to 

 have existed between Bute and Largs. He also brought a specimen of 

 the Osmunda regalis, the flowering fern, this being the first purely 

 botanical notice in the minutes. 



After meeting for some time in a room in Smith's Court, between 

 Candleriggs and Brunswick Street, the Society removed in 1815 to a 

 room at 35 Virginia Street, rented from Mr. Connal, the first meeting 

 in this place being signalized by a paper on optics by Professor Meikleham. 

 In 1816, Charles Cameron, a chemist, solicited the patronage of the 

 Society, of which he was not a member, to a plan for quenching fires by 

 carbonic acid gas, produced in portable air-tight vessels by the action of 

 sulphuric acid on carbonate of lime. The Society commended the 

 ingenuity of the plan, but expressed doubts as to its practical utility. 

 Mr. Cameron then resolved to put the invention to the test of experi- 

 ment. A huge barrel was charged with combustible materials, and set 

 on fire. The carbonic acid being generated in a closed vessel, escaped 

 with great force through a tube, like a tuyere pipe, let into the burning 

 materials ; and Mr. Hart remembers the amusement occasioned by the 

 mechanical power of the discharge, iiistead of extinguishing the flames, 

 blowing them into the utmost degree of intensity. The invention 



