PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
A meeting of the Queenaland Philosophical 
Society was lield on Monday, 28th inat. Chief 
Justice Cockle, F.R.S., in the chair. 
After some routine business, Mr. Townson 
proposed, and Mr. Coxen seconded, the elec- 
tion of Mr. Henry Scott, at the next 
meeting. 
The Secretary laid on the table a Sum- 
mary of the Meteorological Observations 
taken at Brisbane during the month of 
December. 
Dr. O’Doherty not being present, no paper 
was read. 
It was decided that the usual monthly 
meeting should, for the future, be held on the 
Friday nearest the new moon. 
The President said that there was a circum- 
stance, connected with recent historical or theo- 
logical discussions, to which, as a literary 
curiosity, he might perhaps call the attention 
of the Society. The authenticity of the forty- 
sixth chapter of Genesis had been questioned 
on the ground that Hezron and Hamul were 
represented (verse 12) as accompanying Jacob 
into Egypt, and that without them there would 
not be threescore and six souls (verse 26). On 
examining the chapter he (the President) 
found that, excluding Hezron and Hamul and 
(of course) Er and Onan, sixty-six persons were 
enumerated by name. If to these we add 
Joseph and his two eons (verse 27) there will 
be a total of sixty-nine exclusive of Jacob’s 
daughter Dinah (verse 15) there will be a total 
of seventy-one persons, Jacob being included. 
Substantially the whole discussion has turned 
on a supposed fact, taken for granted on either 
side, which, on investigation, appears to have 
no existence. 
