IGO 



The Naturalist. 



Leeds, reported the proceedings of the Geological Section. A discussion 

 followed as to whether the conglomerate at the base of the carboniferous 

 limestone was of carboniferous or devonian age. The speakers were Dr. 

 Parsons, Mr. J. W. Davis, and Mr. C. H. Bothamley. The conclusion 

 arrived at was that the conglomerate represented the bottom of the ocean 

 in which the limestone was deposited, and was of the carboniferous 

 period.— W. D. R. 



Yorkshire Naturalists' Ukeon Exhibition. — Botanical Report. — 

 The room allotted to the Botanical Section was the smallest of the rooms 

 occupied by the exhibition, and consequently it was not possible to 

 display more than a tithe of the specimens sent in, though tables were 

 crowded and walls tapestried with them. An exhibition of botanical 

 specimens, especially if held, like the present, at a time when it is im- 

 possible to procure living plants, must necessarily be more attractive to 

 the botanist than to the sesthetic lover of flowers, for the graceful forms, 

 vivid colours, and sweet odours of living foliage and flowers cannot be 

 preserved in the herbarium, being more or less completely lost in drying : 

 hence, while stufied birds, butterflies, and shells are beautiful and 

 attractive objects in the cabinet, a collection of dried plants to a non- 

 botanical beholder is only so much Latin hay." The only exhibitor 

 who attempted to treat his subject artistically was Mr. J. R. Murdoch, 

 who exhibited with other specimens an elegant wreath constructed of 

 various species of mosses, and surrounding an appropriate quotation. 

 As objects of beauty, we must also mention an admirably-dried series of 

 marine algae from the Isle of Man, exhibited by Mr. Thomas Hick. To 

 the botanist, however, there was much to interest arid instruct. Mr. A. 

 Carr, of Sheffield, besides a number of other specimens, sent an excellent 

 series of brambles and roses, which, though suggesting to the superficial 

 observer the thought — "Caesar and Pompey, very much alike, specially 

 Pompey," were full of interest to the botanical students who have 

 mustered sufficient courage to attack these thorny and puzzlesome plants. 

 The specimens of each species contained, mounted on one sheet, the 

 flowering shoots, the fruit, and the barren stem ; the only thing wanted 

 to complete the illustration being a sketch of the plant to show the habit 

 of grovrth — an important character which cannot be shown in a herbarium 

 specimen. Yorkshire and other British flowering plants and ferns were 

 shown by the Goole Scientific Society and others ; a herbarium of North 

 American plants by Mr. W. West ; and a collection of alpine plants from 

 Switzerland by Dr. Parsons, who also exhibited mosses, hepaticae, lichens, 

 and fungi from Yorkshire and the south of England. Some of the dis- 

 coveries of the past year were on view, as Aulacomnion turgidum from 

 Whemside, Carex capillaris from Gordale, Limosella aquatica from Raw- 

 cMe, Carduus acaulis from Lindrick Common, &c. 



