2io Annual Report of the Council. 



held for twenty-one years, but increasing engagements elsewhere 

 make it undesirable for me to continue its responsibilities, and, more- 

 over, I consider it most important, at a time when great changes are 

 imminent — from your having so liberally endowed the Society 

 and proposing to elect a paid Assistant, whose principal work will 

 be in the Library — that my successor should commence his duties 

 from the beginning. 



Requesting you to thank my colleagues on the Council for 

 the consideration always shown me in the past, and with the 

 kindest regards to yourself, 



Believe me, 



Yours very truly, 



To Henry Wilde, F.R.S., Francis NICHOLSON. 



President of the 



Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society. 



The Council recommends the continuance of the system 

 of electing Associates of Sections, and the usual resolution 

 authorising the same will be submitted at the annual 

 meeting. 



Le Marquis Gaston de Saporta was a distinguished 

 Palaeo-Botanical honorary member. Born at St. Zacharie 

 (Var, France), July 28, 1823, and educated in the Jesuit 

 College at Fribourg in Switzerland, he commenced his 

 scientific studies when 30 years old, and when a widower for 

 the first time. His first work was undertaken along with 

 M. Philippe Matheron, of Marseilles (who was chosen a 

 correspondent of the Academy but a few days before 

 Count Saporta's death), and was entitled " Examen 

 analytique des flores tertiaires de Provence precede 

 d'une notice geologique, et paleontologique sur cette 

 region." (Zurich, 1861.) In 1863, he is again writing, 

 " Sur le role des vegetaux a feuilles caduques, dans les 

 flores tertiaires" (Bibl. Universelle et Revue Suisse), and, 

 during the same year, be sent a note " Sur la fiore fossile de 

 Koumi " to theBull. Soc. Ge'ol. In 1864 he sent one to the same 



