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presumably, of Cornish extraction, and had made a collection of 

 MSS, and rare printed-matter relating to this county ; whilst in 

 our Eeports and Journals may be found valuable contributions of 

 an antiquarian kind from both their pens. The latter's, for the 

 most part, are in the form of courteous answers to questions 

 asked of him by our members in his capacity of honorary secretary 

 of the Archseological Institute. 



In the department of Natural History we have very recently 

 sustained the loss of one of our oldest members. The late Mr. 

 Williams Hockin was ever ready to help us, and being, in regard 

 to English shells more especially, an accomplished Conchologist, 

 he was enabled to render us much service in the classification of 

 the shells in the Museum. Though, fortunately, there still remain 

 to us some of our old contributors in Natural History, our re- 

 presentatives in these fields do not seem to be as numerous as they 

 once were ; whether this may arise from the exhaustion of local 

 material, or from the want of younger men to take the places of 

 those who can no longer work for us. The chief attention of 

 Naturalists at present seems to be centred on the strange fauna 

 procured from the deep seas, and they have more than enough upon 

 their hands in striving to trace the resemblances and differences 

 between the multitudinous organisms now distributed over the 

 globe, and those that have existed in other geological epochs. 



It were an easy transition from Natural History to Physiology, 

 and striking progress has been made in this pursuit during the 

 last year or two, but we, ourselves, have so little work to show in 

 this line, that I should not have alluded to the subject at all had 

 we not to record the death, at a good old age, of one of our 

 Corresponding Members, who was a native of this town. Mr. 

 Thos. Turner was virtually the founder of the Eoyal School of 

 Medicine at Manchester, and with great credit, long occujDied its 

 chair of Anatomy and Physiology. He had been on the Council 

 of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, a rare compHment for 

 a provincial surgeon. 



The late John Phillips, LL.D., &c., "&c., " Eeader in Geology in 

 the University of Oxford," was neither connected with our Society 

 nor contributed to our Journal, but we cannot avoid an expression 

 of regret at the untimely end of a distinguished man who had 

 made many friends in this county during the time he was engaged 

 in the Ordnance Geological Survey, and gathering materials for 

 his work on the Palaeozoic Fossils of Cornwall, Devon and 

 Somerset. Many valuable memoirs on Geology and Mineralogy 

 have appeared in our Journal of late years; and it was owing to an 

 elaborate contribution in its last number on "Detrital Tin Ore" 

 that the publication of our last spring papers became delayed 



