viii Transactions of the Boyal Society of South Africa. 
Ordinary Monthly Meeting. 
August 19, 1908. 
Mr. S. S. Hough, F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 
Mr, J. D. Grimmer was elected an ordinary member of the Society. 
The President announced that one of the original Council members, 
Mr. Denny, had tendered his resignation owing to his leaving South 
Africa, and the Council had nominated in his stead Mr. Innes, of the 
Government Meteorological Station, Johannesburg. This nomination, he 
stated, would be submitted for confirmation at a future meeting. 
The President further announced that the Council had to nominate 
certain gentlemen for election as Honorary Fellows. So far they had 
only selected one gentleman, whose name would be submitted to the 
next meeting. He referred to Sir David Gill, whose nomination, he was 
sure, would be received with general approbation. 
Dr. Marloth exhibited for the information of the Society a specimen 
of a young plant reared from seed spread by ocean currents, as showing 
the fertility of such seeds, although carried a long distance on ocean 
currents. The plant exhibited was Ccesalinnia honducella, a native of 
South America. It had been raised from a seed that had been picked 
up on the beach at Tristan da Cunha by Mr. Keytel, who visited the 
island in 1907, and is at present spending a year on the island. Another 
seed, from a climbing leguminous plant, viz., Puscetha (Entada) scandens, 
had also been found by him, but this had not germinated as yet, and may 
be dead. These seeds were brought to the island by the currents of the 
ocean, and the people at Tristan and St. Helena, who fished them up or 
picked them up on the beach, called them seabeans, thinking that they 
had grown somewhere in the sea. It was generally assumed that these 
seeds had lost their vitality when they reached distant shores, but, as this 
plant showed, such was not always the case. Dr. Marloth had placed the 
seed in the warm house of the Municipal Gardens, where it germinated 
within two months after being planted ; hence there was no doubt that 
these plants might be spread from one continent to another by the 
currents of the sea, provided, of course, that they reach a locality 
which suits them. 
Mr. A. L. Du Toit exhibited specimens of granulites and ultrabasic 
rocks occurring as inclusions in Kimberlite (blue ground) in various pipes 
in northern Cape Colony. The interest attached to these rocks, he said, 
was very great on account of the information which they furnish regarding 
the nature of the comparatively unknown inner portion of the earth's 
crust. These fragments had been brought to the surface from immense 
depths, and their detailed study and investigation should throw a vast 
