iv PROCEEDINGS. 



The February meeting was occupied with botanical subjects. Notes 

 were given on the botanical and commercial history of Nova Scotian 

 foxberries, an export trade in which has been developed to a surprising 

 extent within the last few years, especially in Guysborough County. 

 Mr. G. H. Cox, B. A., communicated a list of plants collected in and 

 around the Town of Shelburne, on .the Atlantic Coast of our Province, 

 in the years from 1890 to 1893. The Institute had previously given 

 space in its Transactions (vol. vi. pp. 209-300, and pp. 283-285) to two 

 similar lists of native plants of Truro, in Colchester County, by Dr. 

 George G. Campbell, which are supplemented this year by a list of 

 additional species collected in that locality by Percy J. Smith. Such 

 lists as these, when prepared with care, form valuable material for the 

 preparation of local floras, as well as for Provincial or more general 

 works, and the opportunity should not be lost to call attention to the 

 substantial service that may be rendered to botanical science by the pre- 

 paration of such lists for localities throughout the Province by those 

 who have opportunities, by residence or otherwise, for local observation 

 and collection. 



The March meeting was taken up with astronomical and chemical 

 subjects. Mr. Cameron, Principal of Yarmouth Academy, whose 

 papers on astronomical observation, published in the periodical press at 

 different times, have so greatly interested the general public, gave us his 

 notes of observations on Venus. These notes may be regarded as a 

 sequel to his previous papers on that planet, of which he has for some 

 years made a special study, with regard more particularly to her visibility 

 from the earth under the changing conditions of elongation from the 

 sun, brilliancy, position, and state of our atmosphere. It seems desir- 

 able, therefore, to advert briefly to the general results reached by the 

 author in each of his two previous papers. 



In the first volume of the second series of our Transactions, Session 

 1892-93 (pp. 148-159), Mr. Cameron dealt with the enquiry : On how 

 many (astronomical) days in the year may Venus be seen with the naked 

 eye ? The answer to this question involved a discussion of the motion 

 and changes of the planet and of the geometrical conditions upon which 

 her brilliancy depends. By constant watchfulness he succeeded in 

 recording a valuable series of observations at Yarmouth, while notes of 

 others made at Marseilles were obtained from M. Bruguiere, who had 

 been engaged on the very same uork for several years before. During 



