44 



Mr. Tate gave the names of a large number of plants recently- 

 added to the local lists by members of the club, several of which, 

 in fact, were new to the flora of Ireland. He announced that 

 since the publication of the Cybele two more plants not hitherto 

 observed had been found in Ireland — one of these, the " sweet 

 flag" (Acorus calamus), was discovered by members of the 

 Belfast Naturalists' Field Club, growing in profusion not very 

 far from this town. 



The paper, which was one of great interest to Irish and to 

 local botanists, referred at length to the necessity of considering 

 the geological features of a country in connexion with the spread 

 of its flora, and expressed the writer's disappointment on ac- 

 count of the authors of the Cybele Hibernica having ignored 

 such an important element in discussing the range of our plants. 



On Thursday Evening, 4th April, the last ordinary meeting 

 of the Society was held. On this occasion Mr. William Gray 

 read a paper on "The Flint Flake Foundation of the pre- 

 Adamite Theory." Mr. Gray commenced by referring to the 

 great variety of tastes, dispositions, and qualities of mind that 

 existed, and contended that all were necessary for the investi- 

 gation of truth. If all minds were similarly constituted, our 

 very existence would become monotonous, and the progress of 

 knowledge would be retarded. It is by the differences in 

 mental qualifications that man is enabled to sweep the universe, 

 and gather knowledge from every source. Difference of taste, 

 then, must necessarily create difference of opinion, but this 

 should not be made a blemish. The rainbow is all the more 

 beautiful by the variety of its tints, and so man's intellect is all 

 the more useful by the variety of its manifestations ; and as 

 it requires the blending of all the rainbow tints to form white 

 light, so also it requires the concurrent testimony of different 

 minds to elicit the pure light of truth. Difference of opinion, 

 then, on scientific subjects should be respected, no matter how 

 opposed to each other, or how contrary to our own. We should 

 not allow the discrepancies that our ignorance discovers to 



