- Miscellanies. © 203 
their surveys on the southern coast of Ceram, and the coast of New 
Guinea. The westerly monsoon now drawing to a close, they pro- 
ceeded to Raffles Bay, in Australia, where the English for some time 
had a settlement; they also visited the colony at Port Essington, 
which had just been founded under the superintendence of Captain 
Bremer. They surveyed the whole extent of the western coast of 
the Arron isles; spent three days at the anchorage of Aobo, and vis- 
ited the fort which the Dutch once owned in the isle of Wokam, but 
which is now a heap of ruins. They also halted five days at the head 
of Triton Bay, where the Dutch have lately established a small set- 
tlement. The coast of New Guinea was carefully examined from this 
point to the southern extremity of Maclure’s passage. Retracing 
their steps, they employed three days in the anchorage of Warou, in 
Ceram. In May, they took the bearings of the northern coasts of 
Ceram and Bouron, the most southerly part of Bouton, as also of 
Celebes, then the Straits of Salayer, as far as Macassar. They then 
bore straight away for Borneo, where they examined the coast at 
Salatan point, and finally made sail for Batavia, where they arrived 
on the 8th of June, 1839. It was expected that the expedition 
would reach home in twelve or fifteen months from that date. 
30. Proceedings of the Microscopical Society of London. (A. G.)—The 
Microscopical Society of London held their first meeting on Wednesday, 
Jan. 29th, at the Horticultural Society's rooms, No. 21, Regent Street. 
The meeting was attended by upwards of a hundred members and vis- 
itors. 
The President, Prof. Cece, announced that since the provisional meet- 
ing on the 20th of December last, for the purpose of forming the Society, 
the number of members. had increased to one hundred and ten, and < 
farther addition of twenty-nine names was announced in the course of 
the evening, making a ssi ak tek icinited cata Ge 
bers, it having been determined that those who joined the Society on or 
before the first night ef meeting should be considered original mem- 
Mr. Owen communicated a paper on 2 the application of microscopic 
e structure of teeth to the determination of fossil Te- 
amples of the utility of 
ture of fossilized teeth. 
The first example adduced was that of the Saurocephalus, an Ameti- 
can fossil animal, which had been referred to the class of reptiles. After 
pointing out the distinctive characters of the microscopic texture of the 
teeth in reptiles and fishes, it was shewa that the Saurocephalus, accord- 
