Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 183 
At tills meeting the following members were elected : 
Honorary Member. 
Count Itterburg. 
Ordinary Members. 
Sir John Meade, M. J). Dr William Macdonald of Ballashore. 
Thomas Kinnear, Esq. Banker. 
May 15. — Dr Duncan sen. read a biographical account of 
the late Dr Daniel Rutherford. Dr Rutherford was born 
at Edinburgh on the Sd November IT^O. He took his de- 
gree of M. D. in 1772, and his thesis was entitled De Acre 
Fixo. In this dissertation he pointed out, for the first time, 
a new gaseous substance, since distinguished by the name of 
Azote or Nitrogen. He was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Col- 
lege of Physicians on the 6th May 1777. In a paper on Nitre, 
read before the Philosophical Society in 1778, he described un- 
der the name of Vital Air, what is now called Oxygen Gas : he 
considered its basis as a necessary constituent of every acid ; 
and he even stated it as not unlikely that by this element they 
were acid. On the death of Dr John Hope, in 1786, he w^as 
elected Professor of Botany and Keeper of the Botanical Gar- 
den, a duty which he discharged till the time of his death, 
which took place on the 15th of November 1819, in the seven- 
ty-first year of his age. 
Art. XXXII. — Proceedings of the Wernerian Natural His- 
tory Society. (Continued from Vol. II. p. 378.) 
Feb. 26. 1820. D R Dewar read a paper on the mode of 
nutrition of the hair, feathers and nails of animals. This pa- 
per will appear in the third volume of the Memoirs of the So- 
ciety, now in the press. At the same meeting. Professor Ja- 
meson read a letter from Dr Boue of Paris, containing an ac- 
count of the resemblance of the rocks of Auvergne and the 
Vivarais to some of those of Scotland. 
March 11. — Mr John Stewart read a paper, giving an ac- 
count of a collection of North American ferns, which he had 
received from Dr Torry of New York. It contained specimens 
of Several rare and interesting species ; among others, Schizaea 
