ELEVENTH MEETING. 



HOY AT, INSTITUTION, March 24lh, 184fl. 



JOS. B. YATES, Esq., President, in the Chair. 



Mr. Jas. Lowe was admitted a Member of the Society. 



Mr. Guthrie presented some beads, money, a tobacco 

 pouch, and skins, procured by himself from the natives 

 of the west coast of Africa. 



Dr. Trench read a short paper, entitled " A Fragment 

 in the History of Mesmerism ;" the purport of which was, — 

 that Julian, " the apostate," had been subject to influence 

 similar to that which is now called "Mesmerism," if not 

 identical with it. 



Dr. Watson presented two specimens of an African 

 shrub, called by the sailors " the coral plant;" he also 

 presented separate portions of its resinous secretion. Mr. 

 Guthrie, who brought the plants to Liverpool, stated that 

 the resin exists in great abundance. The following is the 

 more detailed account, as given by Dr. Watson. 



The natural history of this plant is not much known. 

 The present specimens were gathered by the mate of an 

 Ichaboe ship, Mr. Guthrie, not from off the Island of 

 Ichaboe itself, but from the corresponding western coast 

 of Africa, in the most accessible part of the shore, marked 

 down in the Admiralty chart of the spot as " Sandy 

 Beach," from which landing place a road has been found 

 to the interior, over a desert tract, and the natives have 

 been visited. The habitat of the shrub is among the rocks 

 of the beach, down among the crevices of which the plant 

 sends its serpent- roots, in search of nourishment. When seen 

 and gathered, it resembles a coral very much in shape and 



