94 AlfNUAli GENERAIi MEETING. 



The absence through illness, of our President, the Revd. 

 W. lago, has been a source of much regret to the Council and 

 to the Society in general, and it affords them much pleasure to 

 see him again to-day occupying the Presidential chair. 



As it must be expected, fluctuations among subscribers 

 occur in each year ; and the Council regret to report the loss of 

 three members by death, Mr. C. W. Peach, Mr. Richard 

 Edmonds, and Mr. W. Teague. Mr. Peach, was born at 

 Wansford, in Northamptonshire, in the year 1800, and died at 

 Edinburgh, on 28th of February, of the present year, having 

 attained to the ripe old age of 86. Having been born near one 

 of our great English forests he naturally acquired that love for 

 field sports, which characterised his early days, and the keen 

 powers of observation, developed in the pursuit of sport, stood 

 him in good stead, when in after life he gave his attention to 

 the more noble pursuit of natural science. Mr. Peach's 

 connection with the Royal Institution of Cornwall lasted over a 

 period of nearly half a century; for it was previous to 1840, 

 that we find him enriching our Museum with valuable specimens 

 in Natural History, and contributing Memoirs on Natural 

 Science to the Journal. "When he was stationed at Grorran 

 Haven, in the coast guard service, he sent for the first time a 

 case of 50 specimens of Organic Remains from Fowey, Polruan 

 and Polkerris, which was gratefully acknowledged in the Report 

 of the following year. It was at this time that he was elected 

 an Associate of this Society, " for his laborious exertions in the 

 discovery of the fossil remains enclosed in our rocks under 

 circumstances which would have discouraged most men from the 

 pursuit of science." "We next have a paper of his on the 

 discovery of the Encrinites at Carhayes, Looe, and Morval, and 

 remarks with specimens of Helix pomatia and Carthusiana. 

 Perhaps Mr. Peach's greatest discovery was that of a Holothuria 

 with twenty tentaculse, a species of the eehinodermata, which 

 Professor Forbes pronounced, when speaking of Star Fishes, to 

 have never before been observed in British seas. Mr. Peach 

 was eventually transferred from the coast-guard service to the 

 customs, and it was when stationed at Durness in Scotland, that 

 he discovered those fossils which are now our means of deter- 

 mining the geological age of the Highland rocks, as by similar 



