TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 95 
observation and research, must necessarily be imperfect. The pages of it are 
opened by one generation after another, Much error may be mixed up with these 
researches, and we cannot appeal to an authoritative revelation on these matters. 
There may be science falsely so called—incomplete investigations—which at 
first sight may appear to be at variance with statements in Scripture. But all 
supposed opposition will Siaeprey as science advances. We have no fear of true 
science. We cannot too carefully or too minutely interrogate God’s works. There 
may be a mistaken interpretation of the physical facts mentioned in God’s Word, 
and there may be difficulties as regards them which it is not easy to unravel, and 
which we may not now be able to explain. So far as our faith is concerned, there 
is no cause for alarm as to the teachings of science ; and in regard to minor points, 
there are no contradictions in the two books. Although it is not in these meet- 
ings that we discuss religious questions, still every Christian naturalist must in 
his own mind weigh the bearings of science on that religion which tells him of 
new heavens and a new earth, and on which rest all his hopes of a blessed im- 
mortality, 
Borany. 
Description of the Fruit of Clerodendron Thomsone (Balf.), from Old 
Calabar, By Professor Batrour, F.2.S, 
This Verbenaceous plant was sent from Old Calabar by the Rey. W. C. Thomson, 
and had been described and figured by Professor Balfour from specimens grown in 
the Edinburgh Botanic Garden. The plant has since perfected its fruit, and Pro- 
fessor Balfour gave a description of it, illustrated by drawings. When in fruit, the 
lant presents a showy appearance, owing to the scarlet covering of the inner sur- 
ace of the achenes. ‘The style of this plant in the young state is terminal, and the 
four achenes are concrete. As the carpels advance in growth, they separate and 
the style falls off. On cutting across the four achenes, we observe at their junction 
a red cellular coat. This coat increases in size, becomes succulent, and finally 
separates the achenes so as to make them spread out in a horizontal cruciate form, 
being united only at their bases. The cells of the scarlet mass contain oil-globules. 
Description of a New Plant-house. By T. Bewtey, 
Communicated by N. B. Warn, F.R.S. 
The principal feature was a double roof, by means of which the heat was retained 
to such an extent that it took several nights of severe frost to bring down the 
temperature from 52 to 48 degrees. The effect of this arrangement upon some 
plants was really wonderful, and it enabled the author to grow tropical plants 
towards the roof, while plants requiring a more temperate atmosphere were grown 
below. 
On Proliferous Cones of the Common Larch, 
By Joun Hoce, W.A., RS. & LS., &e. 
The author exhibited many specimens of the cones of the common Larch which 
presented an abnormal mode of growth. He first observed this proliferous growth 
in two or three cones from a young tree, wherein the stalk of the cone had grown 
through the cone itself to an extent of about two inches, in the autumn of 1858; 
and in the following spring he forwarded them to Sir W, Hooker for the Museum 
in Kew Gardens, where they still remain. 
The specimens he now showed were gathered by himself off several young 
larches in October 1862, in another plantation; and the shoots from the extremities 
of the cones had in some extended to full 103 inches, which, as they were well 
covered with leaves and buds, seemed perfectly healthy, and capable of growing 
into strong and regular branches. 
This healthy condition forbade him from attributing the singular proliferousness 
to disease, but assured him that it originated in an exuberance of growth, caused or 
increased by the rainy summer of 1862, 
