21) 
“In the longitudinal section these bodies present their edges, are 
seen strewed all over the sections, and sometimes assume the appear- 
ance of an interrupted yellow line, and individuals now show their 
dark centres flattened. 
“ The dark bodies in the centres of the rings seem to me to be car- 
bonised spores. I have figured some of the most distinct ones from 
different sorts. They have the characteristic outline of a cell —are 
some of them still quite spherical—and in Professor Balfour’s speci- 
men of Wigan cannel coal, where the edge of the section is reduced 
to a rag, some of them are partially divested of the encircling yellow, 
when the spore is seen to project into the empty field. The remains 
of some are also seen as black circular lines, sticking m the varnish 
with which the specimen had been fixed to the glass. 
“The transparent yellow I suppose to have been pressed out in 
the process of carbonisation, or perhaps gathered round them as 
a pool of water encircles a stone on the sea-beach long after the retir- 
ing tide has left all else dry. 
“In short, living vegetable matter, may with tolerable accuracy be 
considered as a semi-opaque substance. The process of carbonisa- 
tion by which it is changed into coal, seems to separate the structural 
from the non-structural, the opaque from the transparent, and as the 
former is compressed and blackened, the latter is insinuated between 
the layers, and into every minute fissure and crevice left vacant 
around the more resistant particles of the carbonaceous mass; while 
decomposed portions are being constantly carried to the surface of the 
earth, by capillary attraction, there to be thrown off into the atmos- 
phere or taken up by the minute spongioles and rootlets of the exist- 
ing vegetation.” 
A paper was read by Mr. M‘Nab, ‘On the Effects of the recent 
Frosts on Vegetation, in different parts of the Country.’ 
Election of Members. 
The following candidates were balloted for, and duly elected :— 
William Falla, Esq., 23, Dundas Street, as Ordinary (Resident) 
Fellow ; Mr. George Morris, Golden Acres Nursery, as Associate. 
