I885-I886.] 4^7 



deep regret ; and it would be with sincere pleasure, perhaps on 

 a future excursion, that the members would look upon this 

 interesting relic in a conspicuous and honourable position. 



The Chairman, on taking the opinion of the meeting, 

 instructed the secretaries to act as they thought best to secure 

 this end, and the Board of Works was suggested as a body in- 

 vested with powers to act in such matters. 



The fifth meeting was held on Tuesday evening, i6th 

 February, in the Museum, College Square — W. H. Patterson, 

 Esq., M.R.I.A., president of the Natural History Society, in the 

 chair — when a lecture was delivered by Mr. William Gray, 

 M.R.I.A., entitled " A survey of the lower organic world on a 

 frond of laminaria." Mr. Gray explained that the laminaria 

 was one of the common olive sea-weeds found abundantly around 

 our shores, and collected for manure or burnt for kelp. In its 

 native element it formed a thick and tangled submarine forest, 

 and as the forest trees on land support and protect various 

 forms of animals and plants, so also the sturdy fronds of lamin- 

 aria support and protect a great variety of marine organisms in 

 such numbers as to form a little world in themselves. In 

 describing this little world, Mr. Gray assumed that the entire 

 organic world might be represented by a sphere, each half 

 representing the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. His 

 survey was to be of the lower portion of both, and assuming 

 that the division of the animal and vegetable kingdoms repre- 

 sented areas, or more properly zones, he exhibited a map 

 showing the relative positions of the several zones, and marked 

 on the map the course of his survey. Commencing with the 

 lowest zone of the vegetable kingdom, he described the sea- 

 weeds as without stem or root, leaf or flower, and yet by their 

 beautiful forms and colours they prefigured the higher forms of 

 vegetable life. Having described the fructification of the sea- 

 weed he went on to describe the diatoms, a division of the algae, 

 which were simple plants, and yet were composed of glass or 



