Pro cee dings . 155 



bodies of a low order. Dr. Lillie also related the failure in his 

 hands of guano from Bass's Straits as a manure: it was applied by 

 him over 5 acres of land in the shape of top-dressing to a corn crop. 

 Sir William Denison had also largely experimented with guano from 

 the same locality, and with the same marked want of success. The 

 failure is attributed to the immediate setting in and long continuance 

 of dry weather. 



Members of the Society invited to institute a set of experiments 

 upon the relative strength and durability of Tasmanian timbers, and 

 to determine their specific gravities. 



The meeting considered that experiments should be made to 

 determine the capabilities of the indigenous grasses of the Island for 

 improvement by cultivation, — their relative power of withstanding the 

 aridity of our summer months, and the ravages of the grub and 

 caterpillar, ^c. 



A sample of the white resin of the Oyster Bay Pine (Callitris 

 Australis, Brown) lay on the table. The Secretary stated that this 

 tree has only been met with along a comparatively limited and 

 narrow strip of land bordering the sea on the eastern coast of 

 Tasmania, and upon Flinders' and Cape Barren Islands in Bass's 

 Straits ; that about Swanport and the shores of Oyster Bay it forms 

 a tree, always handsome and picturesque, and sometimes 120 feet in 

 height, aflfording useful but not large timber, fit for all the ordinary 

 purposes of the house carpenter and joiner in a country district. 



]8th September, 1848. — The monthly meeting appointed for the 

 second Wednesday of the month held by postponement this evening ; 

 His Excellency Sir W. T. Denison, President, in the chair. 



James Grant, Esq.,of Tullochgorum, and Dr. Nixon, Lord Bishop 

 of Tasmania, elected Fellows of the Society. 



Twenty volumes of books and pamphlets presented to the Society's 

 Library by J. E. Bicheno, Esq. 



The Secretary read a paper on the geological structure of the 

 country between Southport and South Cape Bay, and submitted a 

 plan with sections of the coast near the Whale's Head, illustrated 

 with specimens of the coal, shales, clay-schists, sandstones, and trap- 

 rock prevalent there. 



Attention was directed to specimens on the table of Anthracite from 

 Adventure Bay, where it occurs in a seam of inconsiderable thickness, 

 over a compact, hard, and tenacious clayey sandstone, having embedded 



