xviii. Proceedings. [March i6th } 1920. 



Reference was made to a letter in Nature of February 12th 

 1920, in which the space between the principal focus of a convex 

 mirror and the mirror itself was contrasted with the space out- 

 side. If the reflected images of human beings in such a mirror 

 were endowed with intelligence , volition, the ability to measure 

 lines, areas, and so forth, the principal focus, to them, would 

 be at infinity. Equal straight lines, as measured outwards in 

 the direction of a radius would have images of progressively 

 diminishing length in the direction of the focus, but the phan- 

 toms would be unaware of this, as their measuring instruments 

 would contract in the same ratio. Other consequences of the 

 distortion were pointed out, and their bearing on Einstein's 

 theory alluded to. 



Reference was also made by Mr. C. L. Barnes to the death of 

 Dr. C. Gordon Hewitt, Dominion Entomologist, Canada ; a 

 former Member of the Society, well known for his researches on 

 the House Fly, the diseases of trees, &c The President and 

 Professor Sir William Boyd Dawkins also referred to Dr. 

 Gordon Hewitt and his work. 



Mr. W. J. Perry, B.A., read a paper entitled u The Search 

 for Gold and Pearls in Neolithic Times." 



Further research on the distributions of early sites of civilisa- 

 tion and of the sources of gold and pearls has produced a mass 

 of evidence to substantiate and enlarge the thesis of a communi- 

 cation to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 

 1915 on " The Relationship between the Geographical Distribu- 

 tion of Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines." The 

 evidence now suggests that not only megalithic monuments but 

 early sites in general marked the settlements of seekers after 

 gold and pearls ; amber and purple having also played their 

 part in attracting strangers. These settlements are mostly 

 localised in the basins of rivers containing gold or pearl-bearing 

 mussels, and the distribution map shows that the early seekers 

 for these objects did not allow much to escape them. 



Further inquiry will be necessary in order to determine the 

 precise age when this search began. 



Ordinary Meeting, March 16th, 1920. 



Mr. William Thomson, F.R.S-E-, F.I.C. {Vice-President), 



in the Chair. 



A vote of thanks was passed to the donors of the books upon 

 the table. These included " Oeuvres Completes de Thomas Jan 

 Stieltjes " (4to, Groningen, 1918), presented by the Society 

 Mathematique, Amsterdam. 



