40 



The Chairman anuounced the opening of the Museum of Applied 

 Science, and invited the members to inspect it at the close of the 

 meetir.g. 



Mr. Cunningham, F.G.S., exhibited several fossils, which were 

 presented to the Royal Institution Museum. Among these were 

 sandstone from Grinshill Quarries, in Shropshire, containing impres- 

 sions of showei's of ancient rain in relief, and also the converse ; i.e. the 

 veritable pit marks produced by the falling rain, when the sand was in 

 a soft and incoherent condition. Casts of sun cracks in the sand, 

 beautifully preserved, were also seen in the same specimens. He pre- 

 sented a slab of siliceous limestone, which he found on the shore near 

 the Menai Suspension Bridge, containing a beautiful impression of 

 the nondescript animal, called a nereite, which he supposed to be the 

 Crossopodid Scotica. This slab, although found mixed loosely up with 

 others belonging to the lower beds of the carboniferous group, found in 

 that place in situ, belongs to the lower silurian formation, and must 

 have been transported from a considerable distance. He also exhibited 

 another slab, detached from a stratum of limestone in situ, near to 

 where the other specimens were found, containing a petrified sponge in 

 beautiful preservation. The upper surface of the strata, from which 

 the specimen was detached, was covered with these zoophytes, as they 

 originally grew to the extent of from twelve to fourteen feet in length, 

 and from three to four feet in width. 



Mr. T. C. Archer exhibited a sample of the seed vessels of the 

 Ptelea trifoUata, a North American shrub, which had just been added 

 to the new INIuseum of Science and Art in connexion with the Royal 

 Institution. It was so very much like the hop that it might be intro- 

 duced with very good effect as a substitute for it, and was well 

 calculated to become a valuable article of commerce. It possessed, 

 even in a more remarkable degree than the hop, the pure and agreeable 

 bitter w^hich is the peculiar property of that plant. He observed Mr. 

 Nuttall, of Raiuhil], present, who was doubtless well acquainted with it. 



Mr. Nuttall assented. He had seen it growing and flowering very 

 freely in the gardens about St. Helens. 



The papers of the evening were then read, as follows : — 



ON HORACE'S ODE, "IX ARCHYTAM."— Carm. Lib. I., 28. 

 By WILLIAM IHNE, Esq., Ph.D., V.P. 

 " Te maris et terrae numeroque carentis arenre 

 Mensorum cohibent, Archyta, 

 Pulveris exigui prope lit us parva Matinum 



Munera, uec quidquaLi tibi prodest 

 Aerias tentasK<> domos, animoque rotuudinn 5 



