1817.) Wernerian Natural History Society. 233 
substances possessed a different chemical composition from the 
softer and supposed unaltered: rocks. 
At the next meeting, Dec. 7, Mr. Neill read an account of the 
capture of a beluga, or white whale, in the upper part of the Frith 
of Forth, in the month of June, 1815, and described its prineipal 
external characters and dimensions. The specimen, it appears, 
having fortunately fallen under the notice of a scientific gentleman 
at Alloa (Mr. Bald, civil engineer), was by him transmitted to 
Edinburgh. The animal was a male, and was nearly of full size. 
In length, it measured, ina straight line, 13 feet, 4 inches; and, 
where thickest, it was nearly nine feet in circumference. It was 
wholly of a rich white colour ; and the singularity of its appearance 
attracted many hundreds of spectators for several days. While the 
animal was entire and fresh, a correct and beautiful drawing of it 
was made by Mr. Syme, painter to the Society. ‘The external 
characters in general were found to agree with the descriptions given 
by Fabricius in the Fauna Groenlandica (delphinus albicans) ; by 
De la Cepede, in his Histoire des Cetacés (delphinapterus beluga) ; 
and by Sir Charles Giesecké, in the article Greenlund in the Edin- 
burgh Encyclopedia. Several healed wounds, the scars of which 
were still very obvious, indicated that this individual had probably 
been struggling among dri/t ice, and had in this way been carried 
far from hi- usual haunts. Mr. Pennant, in his writings, intimates 
a suspicion that the beluga occasionally visits our seas. It now 
appears that his conjecture was right : nor was this the first occasion 
on which the beluga has been seen on our shores. Mr. Neill men- 
tioned that Col. linrie, of the North British Staff, had, so long ago 
as the year 1793, examined two young and mottled belugas, which 
had been cast upon the beach near Thurso, in the Pentland Frith, 
and that the Colonel’s description, taken on the spot, accorded 
generally with the accounts given by Crantz, Fabricius, and others. 
At the meetifig on Dec, 21, Dr. Barclay described the appear- 
ances which occurred on the dissection of the beluga above-men- 
tioned. He arranged his observations under the following heads :— 
1. ‘The integuments. 2. The tongue, alimentary canal, &c. 
3. The organs of generation. 4. The os byoides, larynx, trachea, 
and lungs. 5. The skeleton. 6. The organs of sense. 
In examining the integuments, he found the rete mucosum about 
two-thirds of an inch in thickness, and evidently composed of two 
strata; the under stratum distinctly lamellated, with the edges of 
the lamin at right angles to the stratum above, and which, on 
looking outward, from within, were observed separating and uniting 
again in waved lines, leaving interstices between them where they 
diverged, extending through the whole depth of the stratum. On 
viewing this stratum from the lateral aspect, the lamine seemed 
obviously composed of fibres that were perpendicular to the stratum 
above and the cutis beneath. 
‘The tongue was thick and short, restricted in its motions, and 
situated far back in the mouth, ‘The oesophagus, when moderately 
