— S35 — 



sertons attention sliouW be direetpcl to that branch of 

 industry so profitable to the populatif>n, and that every 

 possible enooiiras^pnient should be aifunlfd to it. 



Piiaes might be afforded by the Society to those who 

 obtain the most successfvil reswlts in that important 

 brancdi of f cononiy. 



"With tliis introdu'tion, Your Serretary craves per- 

 mission to present a sketch of the labors of individual 

 mpmbers of the Society during the year "which has just 

 elapsed. 



Dr Ayres read a very interesting paper on tha S'eo- 

 lojry of Flat Isliiud and of Gabriel Island, the result 

 of several months study of those islands durinj^ his re- 

 sidence in one of them as Superintendent of the Qua- 

 lantine Station. 



Those islands, as Avell as the principal one, Mauri- 

 tius, are, as we knnw, of volcanic origin, and the sea 

 ■which separates them, judginEf from its chopped ap- 

 pearance, is not very deep Fiom this, Dr Ayres con- 

 chides that they w-'re originally part of Mauritius, from 

 which, pr&bably, they were separated by the shock of 

 an earthquake, and that the rocky land which emerges 

 from the sea, escaped from the iuundiition and belongs 

 to a long chain of submarine mountains, of which 

 Mauritius, Bourbon even, and the islands in question 

 are the culminating points. 



This paper, of which it would be difficult to give a 

 sufficient analysis in a few words, and which will more- 

 over be published with the Transactions of the Society, 

 mentions, amongst other facts noticed by Dr Ayres. the 

 very curious fact of the existenre, on the eastern shore 

 of Gabriel Island, opposite to Round Island, of a con- 

 siderable number of rocky stumps jdaced at a short dis- 

 tance from each other. They are like wrung columns 

 rough, encrusted with a deposit which appears to bo 

 foraminiferous, and from their position resemble huge 

 stalagmits. 



These columns huddled together, (Dr Ayres Itas been 

 able to count about 200 in one sj)ot)are aliout two ffet 

 high, of the same diameter, hollow, and thirkpr at the 

 base, like the ])alm tree. There is also to be sc'^i on 

 the denuded surfuce of the rock ou the steep shore, a 



