small causes.

All the water that fertilises the surface of the earth has for this purpose been made first to assume the form of drops; these drops being themselves collections of watery particles so small as to be capable of being held in suspension by the atmosphere. A single grain of wheat is small, but yet along with others it yields the chief ingredient in the staff of life. The action and reaction between two contiguous grains of sand must be a small force, yet it is a constituent of a power sufficient to resist the sea in its might. The friction at any point between two fibres of a strand must be small, yet, in the absence of adhesive matter, this friction multiplied is the strength of all ropes longer than the fibres which compose them. Indefinitely smaller than any of the forces we have yet alluded to may probably be those molecular forces which in combination give the diamond its hardness and to steam and gunpowder their wondrous propelling power. Multiplication of the same small unit of force past all bounds of calculation seems to lie at the foundation of the laws of matter and material changes. And in the world of organic beings it almost seems as if the more minute the creature the more wondrous its productions. Inconspicuous protozoa build monuments which diminished by the mightiest monuments of

the pyramids, seem scarcely to have suffered any loss.

It may be possible to find a parallel to this in the immaterial world. A truth of overwhelming significance forbids us to set a limited value on even a single soul of man; yet in the presence of that one living MIND which thought out the universe, man seems only able to love honour and obey in an infinitesimal degree: nevertheless it may be that the temple of His glory is ordained to rise, like the atol of the southern ocean, by increments countless and imperceptible, unless to Him of whom it is written, that rejoicing in the good of all His creatures, He inhabiteth the praises of eternity.

FIFTEENTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 30th April, 1860.

The Rev. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A., President, in the Chair.

The resignation of Mr. Eden was received and accepted.

Mr. JOHN WILLIAM OTTO FABERT was balloted for and elected an Ordinary Member.

This meeting being the last of the session was devoted to miscellaneous communications.

Mr. T. C. ARCHER described an appearance bearing strong resemblance to a comet, which he witnessed on the morning of the 29th April, in the zone between the Great Bear and the horizon.

Mr. MORTON exhibited a number of interesting organic remains (Lingula, Theca, Asaphus, Trimucleus, Euomphalus, and Dictyonema) from the Lower Silurian (Cambrian) district of Shelve, in Shropshire-the typical Siluria of Sir Roderick I. Murchison.* On a small scale it exhibits the grander features of Snowdonia, and affords greater facilities for examination. To the east is the Longmynd, accounted the oldest land in England, consisting of about 35,000 feet of slate rocks, intersected by numerous trap dykes. These "bottom rocks," long considered non-fossiliferous, have lately yielded organic remains to the assiduous researches of Mr. Salter. Above them are the Lingula flags, chiefly remarkable for the cropping out of strata of associated quartz rocks, called the Stiper stones, which exhibit a succession of rocky ridges very conspicuous over the surrounding scenery.

See section, "Siluria," p. 29.

They present no certain fossil evidence, though some small cavities in the quartz rock are considered by Mr. Salter to have been occupied by lingula previous to the metamorphism of the strata. Above these hard siliceous rocks,

a series of strata repose, representing the Llandeilo formation, from which the fossils exhibited were collected. The first three genera were found within a few hundred yards of the Stiper stones; the rest were higher in the series. A very interesting collection was obtained from the upper Llandovery rocks,--strata which lie unconformably with any of the formations below.

Dr. COLLINGWOOD, on behalf of Mr. HENRY DUCKWORTH, exhibited some fossils from the London clay.

Mr. STATTER exhibited and described his decimal clock, and explained at length the principles of his system applied to time, measurement, capacity, weight, and money.

Dr. EDWARDS continued his experimental illustrations of magnetic light.

The business being closed the Society adjourned.

The SOCIETY at its various meetings had the following donations

laid upon the table, and recorded its grateful thanks to the donors.

DONATIONS

FROM MAY 1859 то MAY 1860.

October 3rd, 1859. From the Author - The Fauna of Blackheath and its vicinity; The Estuary of the Mersey considered as a locality for Nudibranchiate Mollusca; and On the Morphology of Plants: all by C. Collingwood, M.B., F.L.S. October 17th, 1859. From the Institution

Reports of Smithsonian

British Association Reports: Leeds

From the Society - Journal of Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, Vol. xiv, Nos. 13 and 14, and Supplement to Botany, No. 2.

From the Society - Proceedings of the Dublin University Zoological and Botanical Association, Vol. i. No. 2.

From the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty

Report

of the Teneriffe Astronomical Experiment of 1856, by Professor C. Piazzi Smyth.

From the Society Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. xxii. Part 3.

From the Society

Transactions of the Royal Scottish

Society of Arts, Vol. v. Part 2.

From the Society Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, Nos. 370 to 383, and Part 1, 1859.

From the Society — Journal of the Royal Dublin Society, Nos. 12, 13, and 14, 1859.

From the Society-Transactions of the Plymouth Institution and Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society, 1857-8 and 1858-9.

History and Philosophical Society, 1859.

From the Society Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. xix. Nos. 6, 7, 8 and 9.

From the Committee-Report of the Birkenhead Free Public Library, 1859.