16 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 
inventions and improvements of this now really indisputable aid 
to the study of natural science furnish. It is quite needless here 
to enumerate the objects submitted to the inspection and 
study of the meeting. In the lecture-room of the College of 
Medicine the Rev. H. B. Tristram gave, in a brief lecture, an 
interesting account of the geological features of the Sahara, or 
great Desert of Northern Africa, the result of his own personal 
observations; and Dr. Embleton followed with a short lecture on 
some of the vegetable and animal substances exhibited under the 
microscopes, and after referring to their various properties of ex- 
tensibility, porosity, &c., explained in connection with the struc- 
ture of these tissues the circulation of the sap in plants and of 
the blood in animals. Refreshments in the shape of tea and 
coffee were provided, and the evening was passed most agreeably, 
and but one feeling of entire satisfaction expressed by the numer- 
ous company. 
The First Evenine Mextine of the session was held on Tuesday, 
the 29th of May, 1861. There was a considerable number of 
members present, and after the election of 15 new members, Mr. 
Richard Howse read an interesting paper, being ‘“ An Account of 
the deposits exposed during the excavations at Jarrow Slake, 
with remarks on other deposits of similar age elsewhere,” and 
illustrated it by drawings and a large number of specimens, in- 
cluding those of a supposed new mineral, of which Mr. Jasper 
Browell read an analysis, and proposed for it the provisional 
name Jarrowite. This valuable paper, with Mr. Browell’s 
analysis, will, I understand, soon appear in our Transactions, At 
its conclusion a long and animated discussion on the various animal 
and vegetable remains and fragments of rocks, found during the 
excavations, took place. Mr. D. P. Morison also read a paper 
on a Spider, Neriene errans, which he had found inhabiting the 
underground workings of Pelton Colliery gregariously, and 
covering immense surfaces with its web. Some fine examples, 
both of the Spider and of its web—the latter clothed with par- 
ticles of coal dust—were exhibited, and the paper will appear in 
our Transactions. Here allow me to refer to the splendid volume 
issued by the Ray Society, on the British Spiders, by the 
