64 Work Done by British Association Committees. 



The Lecturer was obliged to omit reference to the immense 

 value of the great mass of the British Association reports on 

 purely scientific subjects. There were in Belfast many persons 

 fully competent to appreciate, and infinitely better qualified 

 than himself to discuss, the reports on subjects connected with 

 Natural History. In pure science, the computation of tables 

 of the values of special mathematical functions, the bibliography 

 of particular scientific information, and the like, did not lend 

 themselves to exposition before a popular audience without 

 previous explanation at considerable length of how and why 

 the matters on which so much trouble was spent were of 

 importance, so that a whole evening would, in many cases, 

 have to be devoted to a single Report, but the Lecturer hoped 

 that some of those able to do so would endeavour to make this 

 society and the public realise the value and magnitude of the 

 work of the British Association in relation to Natural History 

 and kindred subjects. 



AN ANCIENT BOMBSHELL. 



By RoBRRT M. Young, B.A., M.R.I.A. 



{Honorary Secretary) 



This ancient bombshell, which is exhibited by the courtesy of 

 Mr. E. G. MacGeorge, J.P., was found at a depth of 8 feet in 

 estuarine clay adjacent to the Scottish Provident Buildings. 

 It weighs about i cwt., is 10 inches in diameter, and 2 inches 

 thick, of cast iron. There is a fuse hole in which a wood plug 

 4 inches long and i^ thick was found. Small handles of iron 

 rod are inserted at each side. The discovery of the bomb was 

 made when Mr. Robert Corry, contractor for the additional 

 buildings of the Scottish Provident Institution, was excavating 

 on the ground adjoining their present block. By reference to 

 old maps of Belfast it would seem that this site lay outside of 



