Proceedings. 145 
The following new members elected :— 
Dr. M‘Carthy, of Murray-street, Hobart Town. 
Richard Rogers, Ordnance Storekeeper. 
G. A. Robinson, of Melbourne. 
Rev. J. Fereday, of George Town. 
G. S. Davies, A.P.M., ditto 
Francis Hartwell Henslowe, admitted on Rule xvit. 
The Secretary submitted a diagram of a “revolving toothed 
dredge,” forwarded by George Robson, Esq., of Port Sorell, and 
designed to illustrate a letter in the Launceston Examiner of 12th 
ultimo, upon the practicability of deepening and improving the 
entrance of the Mersey River. 
A note was read from Francis Groom, Esq., offering a living Orni- 
thorhynchus to the Society. 
G.S. Davies, Esq., of George Town, sent to the Museum two 
specimens of fossil wood, said to be from Anderson’s Creek, which, 
flowing from the Asbestos Hills, enters the estuary of the Tamar, 
near York Town. 
The Rev. J. Fereday forwarded a specimen of fossil wood taken 
from a slate quarry eastward from George Town; also samples of 
the .sweet-scented wood of Alyxia Buxifolia—a straggling littoral 
shrub, attached to the sunny and sheltered sides and crevices of trap 
and slate rocks along the northern coast of Tasmania, the stem of 
which rarely attains a diameter of more than three or four inches : 
it is said to occur in considerable abundance, and of the largest size, 
about Five-mile Bluff, eastward of George Town. The “ aroma” 
of this wood is more agreeable than that of sandal-wood, and less 
volatile, and much resembles the well-known perfume of the fruit 
of the Dipterix odorato,—Tonquin bean. ‘The A. buxifolia bears a 
white flower, and is remarkable for having the limb of its corolla 
quite flat and the segments contorted, as if suddenly arrested during 
a rapid rotatory motion. It yields a small red berry, and its leaves, 
bark, and succulent twigs, when cut or broken, emit a viscid milky 
juice. 
Mr. Hull presented twenty-four Chinese coins to the Museum. 
G. A. Robinson, Esq., of Melbourne, presented casts of the 
physiognomies of two aboriginal natives of Victoria. 
The Rey. James Garrett, of the West Tamar, Whirlpool Reach, 
forwarded for the Museum the jaws of a shark which was taken in 
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