1889-90.] 215 



medium for mounting them as microscopic objects, so as to 

 have the cells as nearly as possible in the same state as they 

 were when the plant was growing. 



At the conclusion, Mr. Lett mentioned having found during 

 the summer of 1889 the lollowing mosses in the County 

 Antrim : — Sphagnum rigidum, and 5. molle, which have 

 hitherto been collected in only one other Irish locality, near 

 Hilltown, in the County Down, where he found them a few 

 years ago. He also announced meeting in last June with 

 Sphagnum Austini in Glenariff, County Antrim. This is an 

 extremely rare moss, having as yet been discovered in only two 

 British localities — the Hebrides and Westmoreland. An inter* 

 esting discussion and the election of new members brought the 

 meeting to a close. 



The fourth meeting of the Winter Session was held in 

 the Museum, College Square North, on Tuesday evening, 

 January 28th— the President (Mr. William Gray, M.R.I. A.) 

 in the chair — when two communications were brought forward 

 by Mr. R. Lloyd Praeger, B.E. The first paper was on a some- 

 what technical subject, the title being " A Contribution to the 

 Post-tertiary Fauna of Ulster." The reader stated that having 

 been recently engaged in an examination of the Estuarine 

 Clays of the North of Ireland, he now ventured to bring before 

 the Club a few notes of shells observed by him in these beds, 

 which have not previously been recorded therefrom. The 

 Estuarine Clays, he explained, form a series of marine deposits, 

 consisting mostly of tough homogeneous blue clay, attaining a 

 considerable thickness in places ; they usually rest on submerged 

 peat, post-glacial sands, or Boulder Clay, and are often over- 

 laid by raised beaches, which have accumulated to a depth of 

 ten to twenty feet in some spots, since the deposition of the 

 clay beds. The Estuarine Clays yield a rich and varied 

 molluscan fauna, characteristic of the littoral and laminarian 



