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for jumping, rather than swimming, and make their way by 

 darts. Others as the Skate, fly through the water by an up 

 and down motion of the pectoral fin. There are fishes 

 peculiar to countries subject to drought, which, provided 

 with reservoirs of water in the head by which the gills 

 are kept moist and respiration preserved, will leave a parched 

 district and travel upon their rigid fins to one more plenti- 

 fully watered. Mr. P. made many statements as to Turtles, 

 exhibiting specimens. The age of these creatures is always 

 matter of curiosity. The external shell of a Turtle is 

 made up of scales, and these form annual rings of growth 

 at their edges. By counting these the age of the creature 

 may be nearly ascertained. 



Sanboen Tenney, of Newton, Lecturer on Geology at the 

 Normal School in Salem, being invited by the Chair, ex- 

 pressed high gratification at the exercises he had witnessed. 

 He had found the predominant rock in Boxford to be gneiss, 

 passing into mica slate. He had visited the old Lime Quarry 

 and had specimens of the crystalized Carbonate of Lime 

 from thence ; he had also been to the Sunken Meadow, so 

 called. This, said he, is evidently a pond grown up, or 

 grown over. The vegetation from the margin has overhung 

 and gradually overspread the water below, till at last it has 

 united in the middle and hidden it with a covering which 

 might sustain the foot. Probably the water may be forty 

 feet deep below, and the sheet of peat-moss and other solid 

 matter is too weak to bear the weight of the twenty-five feet 

 of gravel that have been piled on it for the railroad, and 

 which have all gone to the bottom. A similar process of 

 growing over has probably, in earlier ages, formed first our 

 peat meadows, then these have changed into bituminous and 

 then into anthracite coal, giving us the vast deposits from 

 which we now draw our fuel. 



Rev. Mr. Coggin of Boxford, expressed his pleasure at 



