45 1 Linticean Society. — Zoological Society. 



taste for scientific research which sprung up in the minds of these 

 gallant men, spontaneously, as it were, and without the aid of regu- 

 lar systematic culture, has been to many of them a welcome relief 

 from the toil and monotony of professional duty; while to others it 

 afforded pleasurable occupation in the solitude of trackless deserts, 

 under exposure to all the rigour of an arctic climate, in the absence 

 of European indulgences, and even under the terrible apprehension 

 of impending starvation. 



The district surveyed by Captain Bayfield is bounded by hills, 

 composed of granite, sienite and trap rocks, which enter so largely 

 into the structure of the two Canadas. Clay, sand and gravel, 

 apparently recent, occupy the coast. The Mingan, the Esquimaux 

 and Anticosti Islands are of limestone, containing fossils like those 

 of Lake Huron. But the most interesting feature in this com- 

 munication is the evidence it affords of a change in the relative 

 position of land and water. In the Mingan Islands is a series 

 of shingle terraces, agreeing in character with the recent beach, 

 the most distant being 60 feet above the level of the highest 

 tide. The author describes, with great care, the different vegeta- 

 tion of each terrace, the one furthest from the shore being covered 

 with trees, the nearest almost barren ; parallel to the shore, in this 

 island, natural columns of limestone have been scooped out by the 

 action of water at different periods ; the levels of the water- worn por- 

 tions agree with those of the terraces, and the depth of the scooped 

 parts, with the rise of the present tidal wave of the St. Lawrence. 

 Captain Bayfield has noticed similar terraces on the adjacent main- 

 land and in the neighbourhood of Quebec, and thinks the pheno- 

 mena indicate successive elevations of the land rather than suc- 

 cessive depressions of the water. 



[To be continued.] 



LINN^AN SOCIETY. 



May 24, 1834. — At the Anniversary Meeting held this day, His 

 Grace the Duke of Somerset was elected President of the Society, in 

 the room of Lord Stanley, who had resigned ; Edward Forster, Esq. 

 was re-elected Treasurer; Francis Boott, M.D., Secretary; and 

 Richard Taylor, Esq., Under Secretary; and the following five gen- 

 tlemen, in addition to the Duke of Somerset, were elected into the 

 Council, in the room of others going out, agreeably to the By- 

 laws: viz. Thomas Bell, Esq.; Rev. J. S. Henslow, M.A. j Capt. J. 

 Clark Ross, R.N., and William Spence, Esq. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



January 14, 1834. —Several crania were exhibited of the Lion and 

 of the Tiger, forming part of the Society's Museum, on which Mr. 

 Owen explained the distinguishing characteristics of that part of the 

 osseous system of these two large species of Felis. He adverted in the 

 first instance to those pointed out by Cuvier in the 'Ossemens Fos- 

 siles', and remarked on the first of them, — the straightness of the 

 outline in the Lion from the mid-space of the postorbital processes 



