1815.] IVernerian Natural History Society. 141 



th;t a more careful and rigid examination, than Mr, Jameson has 

 bestowed on it, would be necessary in order to establish it, or even 

 to render it probable. 2. On veins. Mr. Jameson considers veins as 

 of two kinds. Some have been open rents afterwards filled up. Some 

 have never been rents, but have been formed at the time the strata 

 were deposited, or soon after, by a kind of crystallization in the 

 rock. These he calls cotcmporaneous veins, and he conceives them 

 to be mucii more numerous than has hitlierto been supposed. This 

 opinion, which is very ingenious, is ably supported, and is, I think, 

 very likely to be true. 3. On coal. Coal has been hiihorto usuallv 

 considered as vegetable matter, n:;orc or less changed in its nature'; 

 but Mr. Jameson believes that glance coal, and black coal, are 

 original chemical deposites, as little connected with vegetable re- 

 mains as tlie shells in lime-stone arc with the lime-stone. His 

 reasons are, that they occur in primitive rocks, as gneis, mica- 

 slate, clay-slate, and appear to be of cotcmporaneous formation 

 with these rocks. Brown coal, on the contrary, he considers as of 

 vegetable origin. 



17. Ol'scruations on the. Natural History of the Colymhts hnmer. 

 By Dr. Arthur Edmondstone. — This is a large bird which frequents 

 the Zetland Islands in winter, but disappears in summer. It lives 

 on the water, and seldom lands. It is the opinion of the Zet- 

 landcrs that it cannot fly, and that it hatches its eggs under its 

 wings. Dr. Edmonstone had an opportunity of refuting the first 

 of these notions ; for one, which he wounded, after diving, took 

 to wing and flew a hundred yards, when exhausted by loss of blood 

 it fell and was taken. It no doubt migrates to Greenland, or the 

 North Cape, during the breeding season. 



18. Contributions to the British FaJina. By the Rev, John 

 Fleming, F.ll.S.E. — Dr.Fleminggives a description of the following 

 animals hitherto unknown, or nearly so, in Great Britain. 1, So- 

 rex fodiens, or water siirew. 2. Plcuroiwctes punctatus, 3. Le- 

 pas fascicularis. '1. Hirudo verrucosa. 5. Echinus miliaris. 6. 

 Lucernaria fascicularis. 7- Caryophyllia cyathus. 8. Fungia tur- 

 binata, y. Flustra ellisii. Curious information is given respecting 

 these animals, which I am obliged to omit here, as it is scarcely 

 susceptible of abridgment. 



19. Description and Analysis of a new Species of Lead Ore 

 from India. By Thomas Thomson, M. D. F. R. S., &c. — The 

 specimen examined was brought by Dr. Heyne from Madras, where 

 it is sold in the shops as a medicine. It a|)proaches most nearly to 

 galena in its appearance, though its characters are a good deal dif- 

 ferent from those of that mineral, 1 found it composed of 



Lead 50-059 



Copper 32-500 



Iron 1 ':qo 



Sulphur 11 •.'$28 



Loss 4-743 



jou-ouo 



