cii. PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 



amongst garden plants and are rarely if ever permanent except 

 under cultivation. The variable colours of a species of plant, 

 such as wallflowers or chrysanthemums, are found to be due 

 to the different proportions of the same pigments which occur 

 in different specimens. In this county, in which there are 

 large stores of peat, the information contained in a recent book 

 may be interesting that gas of better quality may be produced 

 from some peat than from coal, and in greater quantity, and that 

 peat can be used with advantage for many other purposes, which 

 are, I think, not generally known, but which space will not 

 permit me to detail. 



GEOLOGY. 



The centenary of the Geological Society was celebrated at the 

 end of last September by meetings in London and excursions in 

 various parts of the kingdom, including one in Dorset. This 

 great Society holds one of the foremost places amongst its 

 compeers, and we are proud to number one of the past presidents 

 amongst our own vice-presidents. I can also feel a special 

 personal interest in it as my father was one of its members for 

 many years. At the British Association meeting the president of 

 the geological section dealt with many theories and some facts 

 bearing on the formation and character of the earth's interior, 

 discarding the familiar nebular hypothesis in favour of the 

 planetismal, which assigns its origin to the condensation ot a 

 spirally formed group of minute planetary bodies. The results 

 of an expedition to Fiji tend to show that it at one time formed 

 part of a great Austral -Papuan continent. At Professor Milne's 

 suggestion a seismograph has been established at Cardiff, which 

 will form a triangle with those at Birmingham and the Isle of 

 Wight. The deepest boring in Britain has just been completed 

 in Fifeshire, where a depth of 4,534 feet was reached before 

 arriving at the mountain limestone. An extensive landslip has 

 occurred at Mount Bringuez, in France, where a whole slope of 

 the mountain estimated to contain 400,000 cubic metres, has moved 



