316 NOTICES OF THE MEETINGS [May 13, 
carbon daily, the remainder of the carbon appearing in the excreted 
matter. 
In conclusion, Dr. Playfair explained how the dietary-tables 
elucidated the various admixtures of food common to cookery, and how 
they might even be made to bear on certain national characteristics, 
which were in no small degree influenced by the aliments of 
different nations. 
Pie Bs 
WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 
Friday, May 13. 
Tue Duxu or NortHuMBERLAND, K.G., F.R.S., President, 
in the Chair. 
Proressor Epwarp Forsss, F.R.S., President of the 
Geological Society. 
On some New Points in British Geology. 
Not many years ago it used to be said that the geology of England 
was done, and yet the best investigated localities are constantly 
affording fresh discoveries. When the Lecturer last year exhibited 
Captain Ibbetson’s beautiful and accurate model of Whitecliff Bay in 
the Isle of Wight, in illustration of his views respecting the distribu- 
tion of species in time, he had not the slightest suspicion that this 
particular locality, so often and apparently so thoroughly explored, 
could yield new results and new interpretations. Nevertheless, 
having had occasion, at the suggestion of Sir Henry De la Beche, 
to examine the tertiary strata of the Isle of Wight for the purposes 
of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, this very bay of White- 
cliff proved to be a rich source of novel geological information. 
Moreover, a great portion of the Isle of Wight, on further examina- 
tion, turned out to belong to a division of the older tertiaries, that 
had never been demonstrated to exist within the British Islands. 
As a general statement of these results and of their bearings may be 
more intelligible to non-professional lovers of geology than the de- 
tailed memoirs about to be published on the subject, Professor 
Forbes has taken this opportunity of communicating them to the 
Members of the Royal Institution. 
The Isle of Wight is divided into two portions by a great chalk 
ridge running east and west. This is the ridge of vertical chalk 
beds. To the north of it, the country is composed of tertiary, to the 
