Repoets of Societies. 



14 



suitable apparatus the president collected tlie gas and water produced by 

 the burning of a taper, weighed them, and found them heavier than the 

 taper burnt. The increase in weight was due (as was explained) to the 

 oxygen of the air having combined with the carbon and hydrogen of the 

 taper to form carbonic acid and water, which were detected in the usual 

 way, by caustic potash. The experiment was useful to naturalists as 

 showing that the particles of matter of which any substance is composed 

 ean be separated and re-combined, but cannot be annihilated. 



OvENDEN Naturalists' Society. — Monthly meeting at lUingworth^ 

 Feb. 3rd, Mr. Roger Earnshaw, vice-president, in the chair. A number 

 of fossils were exhibited by Messrs. Cockroft and Smith, rare specimens. 

 Mr. T. Hirst exhibited and named the following birds and animals, viz. ^ 

 ©ne pair of snowy owls, one racoon, and one polecat, from America ; and 

 also one red deer's head. — [Secretaries should give names and localities of 

 fossils and other specimens exhibited ; communications are of no interest 

 whatever without tiiese. — Eds, Nat.] 



Meeting March 3rd, at Illingworth, Mr. T. Scott, president, in the 

 ehair. — ^Mr. John Hirst exliibited a beautiful peacock butterfly (Vanessa 

 Iq) which he had caught on the l7th of February, near the new Board 

 school, Moorside, Ovenden, where no doubt it had lived during the 

 winter months. Mr. T. Hirst exhibited a snowy owl, from Scotland ; a 

 polecat, from America ; and a fox from Castle Carr, — Joseph Ogden"^ 

 Hon. Sec. 



Rastuick and Brighouse Naturalists' Society. — Monthly meeting, 

 March, Mr. E. Whiteley, president, in the chair. — The following is 

 a list of some of the specimens whick were exliibited : — Geology : head 

 plates and jaws of Osteolepis major, from the Low Moor coal measures, by 

 Mr. George Lister. Conchology : seven species of Zonites, viz., Z. cella- 

 rius, alliarius, nitidulus, purus, nitidus, excavatus, and crystallinus, by 

 Mr. George Lister ; Helix nem,oralis, H. aspersa, H. virgata, by Messrs. 

 E. Whitleley and J. Noble. Mineralogy : a specimen of silver ore from 

 an American mine, by Mr. E. S. Cooper. Botany : the following plants 

 were all exhibited in bloom, and named by Mr. John Hirst : — Ficaria- 

 verna, Mercurialis perennis, Luznla Forsteri (?) Anemone nemerosa, Petasites 

 mdgaris, Salix caprcEa, Potentilla fragariastrum, and Ghrysosplenium 

 oppositifolium. — A. Clarke, Sec. — [We should be glad to see the specimen 

 of Luzida Forsteri, and to learn where and when it was gathered. — 

 Ms. Nat.] 



Selby Naturalists' Society. — 26th Meeting, Feb. 27th, the president^ 

 Mr. J. T. Atkinson, F.G.S., in the chair. — Mr. Vincent Taylor read a 

 paper on Carbon and Flame." The points treated were the structure 

 of a gas flame, and the difference between an ordinary and a Bunsen 

 flame ; the distribution and forms of carbon ; the formation of coal and 

 preparation of coal gas ; the causes of explosions in. mines, and the use o£ 



