Proceedings of the Royal Society for July, 1872

Abstract

The monthly evening meeting of the Society was held on Tuesday, the 9th July, The Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of Tasmania in the chair.-Mr. M. Allport observed that a presentation to the members in regards to the mode of development of the foetal marsupial was for a long time a disputed point.The Rev. H.D. Atkinson brought under notice two shells which he thought were new, and which he obtained by dredging near Partridge Island, at a depth of thirty-live fathoms. -Dr. Agnew exhibited an apple, from the Cascades garden; a portion of which was covered with a growth that on a cursory view appeared to be a species of blight.-Mr. Gould called the attention of the society to some specimens of two rocks, somewhat unusual in the island, porphyries from the neighbourhood of the Black Bluff Mountain, near the Middlesex Plains; one variety consisted of felspar porphyry, characterized by small crystals of pink orthoclase felspar, and of glassy felspar; the other is a quartz porphyry, and both differ materially from the felspar porphyry occurring in the neighbourhood of Port Cygnet, and also as elicited by recent observations of the Rev, H. D. Atkinson, at Oyster Cove. He also referred to some large specimens of Iron Pyrites, taken from a vein in the neighbourhood of the Leven, exhibiting crystallisations in the form of the pentagonal dodecahedron, which he remarked had been exploited by him to some extent in the hope of discovery of underlying ores of copper. The pyrites had been tested for gold, which it was not found to contain.-Includes discussion on smelting of iron ore.- Mr. Stephens said that he had to report an interesting addition to the Flora of Tasmania, a Tree Fern [Cyathea affinis) lately discovered on the North Coast.