EEPORT OF THE MEETINGS FOR 1900 249 



place where they had been ghovelling away the sand and gravel, and 

 the bed rock was thus exposed high and dry, showing sparkling yellow 

 lumps of gold wedged in here and there in cracks, or lying helpless 

 on the face of the rock, and resembling, in a curious fashion, small 

 Chinese josses, as they sat in imperturbable indifference, after a 

 retirement of so many thousands of years. The great specific gravity 

 of gold, as compared with rock, makes its hunting and capture a matter 

 of comparative ease ; being nearly 8 times as heavy as the granite of 

 the stream's detritus it cannot but sink, till further sinking is stopped by 

 the solid rock ; and the delnge of washing that the river gravel receives 

 never washes away the gold, and merely leaves it as the lowest 

 stratum when all the upper strata are carried off by the rush of water. 

 This is, I believe, a question of dynamics rather than of geology. 



The question of the Canadian and British Columbian trees is, I 

 confess, a puzzling one to me. Every person I have so far consulted 

 has a nomenclature of his own, and no two agree completely, and most 

 of them differ absolutely. There are Washington pines, Douglas pines, 

 red pines, black pines, spruces, hemlocks, cedars, and Jack-firs; but 1 

 cannot recognize, with certainty, a single one of these. The vast number 

 of burnt tree-trunks gives a somewhat melancholy aspect to the scenery. 

 I am told there was a great fire over much of British Columbia 60 

 years ago, and these gaunt grey skeletons date from that disaster. 



I hope that you and your family circle are all well : and with 

 kindest regards to you and them, and to any Berwickshire Naturalists 

 you may shortly meet, 



I am, 



Yours sincerely, 



GEORGE G. BUTLER. 



Colonel Milne Home also read a letter from the venerable 

 naturalist, Dr Charles Stuart, expressing regret at his 

 inability to attend to-day's meeting. While sharing his 

 regret, members present could not fail to consider it was 

 best, owing to the inclement weather that had set in, that 

 he had not been with them. At the 1885 meeting, where the 

 doctor was present with 15 other members, he "furnished an 

 outline," as stated on p. 77 of the Eeport, of what he remarked 

 on two former visits, and an announcement was made that 

 it would appear among the papers of the year. But as 

 it did not appear there, Colonel Milne Home undertook to 

 communicate with the doctor in the hope of his being still 

 able to furnish it, and thereby add to the Club's information 

 regarding the glens of Aikengall. (See p. 269.) 



