190 
REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 
the Edge Hill district; Mr. J. Collins, a collection of plants from 
Bewdley, including Lathrcea squamaria, parasitic on a poplar, and 
Scixifraga gramdata. Under the microscopes, Mr. J. Madison, palate 
and upper jaw of Helix pomatia ; Mr. Corbet, circulation in a stickle¬ 
back.—June 4th. Mr. J. Madison exhibited a specimen of IAmax 
agrestis var. albida ; Mr. Deakin, a collection of shells from Gloucester¬ 
shire, including specimens of Ihdimus montanus and Clausilia ltolphii. 
Under the microscope, Mr. Moore, Anguilhda aceti , the vinegar eel. 
Mr. Dunn showed a nodule of flint of which a fossil echinus was the 
nucleus.—June 11th. Mr. Corbet showed slabs of Keuper marlstone, 
from Adderley Park Road, with ripple marks aud pseudo-morphs of 
salt crystals; Mr. J. Madison, a curiously distorted specimen of 
Planorbis spirorbis. Mr. Rodgers, under the microscope, Pandorina 
morxnn. Mr. J. W. Neville then read a paper on “ Drawing Microscopic 
Objects.” The writer said all who worked with the microscope found 
out the necessity of making drawings of some objects they examined, 
if any permanent records of them were to be kept. This necessity 
increased exactly as the facilities for preserving objects diminished. 
In illustrating any subject connected with microscopy, the real objects 
should be shown where practicable ; when they could not, drawings 
must do duty for them. The writer glanced at the different kingdoms 
of nature, and showed where drawings were of little use and where 
important, and remarked that we were largely indebted to the 
draughtsman for our knowledge of “ pond life.” The slight but 
carefully executed drawings, issued by the late Mr. Thomas Bolton, 
would be familiar to all as models of accuracy and care. The various 
appliances for drawing objects were reviewed at length, and preference 
given to Beale's Neutral Tint as being simple in form, economical in 
price, and easy to use. The process of drawing objects was shown, 
and a few hints on the preparation of magic-lantern slides given. 
The paper was illustrated by a large number of drawings. 
DUDLEY AND MIDLAND GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY AND 
FIELD CLUB.—The Annual Meeting of this Society was held in 
the Museum, Dudley, on the 16th May, the president, Mr. Horace 
Pearce, F.L.S., E.G.S., in the chair. The yearly report of the com¬ 
mittee and statement of accounts were presented and adopted, and 
the officers for the present year elected ; Mr. H. Pearce being re-elected 
as president. After the conclusion of business, the party visited the 
Earl of Dudley’s openwork at Claycroft, near Tipton, where a fine 
exposure of the South Staffordshire thick coal, which here attains 
the extraordinary thickness of fourteen yards, has been stripped of 
the overlying few feet of earth and rubble, and is being quarried in 
open daylight. This fine seam of coal, so close to the surface, was 
worked at an early age of mining by most primitive means, the miners 
sinking shallow pits and hollowing out the coal round the bottom as 
far as they ventured to go, having no means of clearing the pits from 
the water which percolated through from the surface. These old pits 
are locally termed ‘"bell-pits” from their shape, and may he seen, 
filled up with surface rubbish, along the line of outcrop of the coal 
measures and at Claycroft. The party then proceeded to Coseley to 
examine a bed of ironstone lying a few feet above the thick coal, and 
the nodules of which contain remains of ferns, insects, crustaceans, 
•Ac., in an excellent state of preservation. Mr. Madeley exhibited 
from this bed a fine collection of ferns, including Alethopteris lonchitica , 
Nevropteris gigantea, N. heterophyUa, together with large specimens of 
Cyclopteris tricomanoidea , which is now generally considered to be part 
