Reports and Proceedings — Zoological Societ//. 573 



native copper in minute and beautifully sharp crystals. The tin 

 ore is obtained from a mass of partially decomposed soft schists 

 overlying limestone, and the copper was probably the result of 

 reduction in situ of a copper salt held in solution by water percolating 

 through the schists. — (2) On a Meteoric Stone from Simondium, 

 Cape Colony ; by Dr. G. T. Prior. Two or three masses of a meteoric 

 stone were discovered in 1907, 100 yards apart and a foot below 

 the surface, in gravel near Simondium Station, on the Paarl to 

 French Hoek line, in Cape Colony. The masses, of which the 

 largest was not more than a foot in diameter, were broken up by 

 the finders, who supposed the particles of nickel iron seen on the 

 fractured surfaces to be native silver. Six of these fragments, 

 which were preserved, have been presented to the British Museum 

 collection by Mr. R. T. Hancock and Mr. R. H. Stanley, one of 

 the prospectors who discovered the masses. The meteorite belongs 

 to the less common class of aerolites which show no chondritic 

 structure; it consists of enstatite, olivine, and felspar, with nickel- 

 iron, magnetite, and some troilite. — (3) On the occurrence of Alstoiiite 

 and Ullmannite (a species new to Britain) in a Barytes-Witherite 

 vein in the J^ew Brancepeth Colliery, near Durham ; by Mr. L. J. 

 Spencer. A large vein of barytes coinciding with a fault in the 

 New Brancepeth Colliery is worked commercially on a large scale 

 for barytes, and has yielded many finely crystallized mineral 

 specimens. These include barytes and witherite in large crystals, 

 and the rare species alstonite and ullmannite (M Sb S, with 28 per 

 cent, of nickel), the latter of which has not been previously recorded 

 in the British Isles. Galena, blende, copper-pyrites, iron-pyrites, 

 and melanterite are also present in small amount. The order of 

 formation of the non-metallic minerals is (1) barytes, (2) witherite, 

 and (3) alstonite, the two last having been derived from the barytes. 

 The ullmannite is found as cubes of considerable size and as octahedra, 

 and it sometimes forms a parallel intergrowth with galena. — (4) On 

 Sartorite and other Minerals from the Biunenthal ; by Professor W. J. 

 Lewis. A crystal of sartorite showing twin lamellae was described. — 

 A pocket sclerometer was exhibited by Mr. C. J, Woodward. 



III. — Zoological Society op Londok. 



Novemher 9, 1909.— S. F. Harmer, Esq., M.A., F.R.S., Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 

 A paper was read by Sir Henry H. Howorth, D.C.L., F.R.S., 

 F.Z.S., on "Some Living Shells, their Recent Biology, and the Light 

 they throw on the Latest Physical Changes in the Earth. — I. 3[ya 

 arenaria ". He stated that Mya arenaria, or the Clam-shell, is widely 

 distributed in the North Boreal, European, and North American seas, 

 and claimed to prove that it is a recent migrant into the former, 

 and has probably not been there more than 300 years. The notion 

 that it is an Arctic shell is a mistake. In the Arctic lists Mya 

 truncata, var. obionga, has been mistaken for it, and the glacial 

 character of the beds in which it has occurred, which has been 



