290 Proceedi/igs. 



The Secretary placed on the table for the Museum specimens of 

 fossil woods, upwards of twenty in number, from various parts of Vaii 

 Diemen's Land and Bass's Straits, duplicates of which have been 

 recently forwarded to the British Museum, and to Mr. Brown, 

 President of the Linnean Society, &c. Mr. Milligan also presented 

 about 60" species of shells of Tasmania, — terrestria,!, fresh water, and 

 marine, — several possessed of much delicacy and beauty, and probably 

 undescribed ; duplicates of them have been forwarded to the British 

 Museum. Mr. Milligan also presented for the Museum a human 

 cranium, apparently aboriginal, and recently ploughed up on new 

 ground near Wabbs' Harbour, in a tolerable state of preservation. It 

 is known that the aboriginal tribes diflbred in their mode of disposal 

 of the dead ; some interred and roughly covered them over in holes 

 and cavities accidentally formed by the upset of a tree or the like ; 

 others burnt their bodies to ashes in huge fires ; while others, after 

 placing them in hollow trees in a sitting position, surrounded them 

 with loose pieces of dry timber, and so abandoned them. 



Mr. Milligan also submitted specimens of granite, containing 

 garnet, from Wabbs' Harbour. 



The Secretary read letters from the Horticultural Society at 

 Wellington, New Zealand, expressive of their desire to reciprocate ; 

 and from the principal librarian of the British Museum, comrauuicat-' 

 ing the intention of the trustees to furnish the Eoyal Society of Van 

 Diemen's Land with copies of their extensive and valuable catalogues, 

 and thanking this Society for specimens of Gorgonits sent home by the 

 Secretary — the first of the kind met with in the southern hemisphere. 

 The Secretary read extracts of an interesting letter from J. E. Gray^ 

 Esq., F.E.S. of the British Museum, on this and other corallines 

 forwarded. Mr. Gray refers the coralline in question to Primiioa, of 

 which he thinks it may form a subgenus, if it do not turn out to be an 

 entirely new genus. 



A communication forwarded through J. E. Bicheno, Esq., from 

 Mr. Frederick Maning, on an unusual optical phenomenon, described 

 by him as having occurred off Maria Island, during his residence 

 near Spring Bay, was read. 



The Secretary mentioned his having observed the appearance of 

 luminous rays emanating from the shadow of a person thrown across 

 a field soon after sunrise, at Sandy Bay, on a fine dewy morning. 

 Attention was drawn to a small gun harpoon, neatly executed by 

 D.A.C.G. Mitchell, on a principle suggested, it appears, by Staff 



