From the Author. The Life of Fin-Barre, first Bishop and founder of the See of The following objects of interest were exhibited : By Mr. Thomas Gibson. A complete series of beautifully executed miniatures of the sovereigns of the Mogul dynasty, executed by native artists. By Mr. H. E. Smith. A rose-noble of Henry V, and numerous specimens of objects in lead, supposed to be modern imitations of the antique. By Mr. Burke. 1. Sulphur impressions of various royal, ecclesiastical and other public seals of the ancient royal city of Dunfermline. 2. Views of still or recently existing remains of Old Dunfermline. The following Papers were read : 1. ON THE BIRTH-PLACE OF ELIZABETH, DAUGHTER OF JAMES I, by Ebenezer Henderson, LL.D. 2. NOTICE OF AN EARLY CONVENTUAL CEMETERY IN WIRRAL, by Henry Ecroyd Smith.* 9th February, 1865. LITERARY SECTION. THOMAS SANSOм, Esq., F.B.S.E., in the Chair. Mr. Thomas A. Porter, 9, Church street, Everton, was duly elected an ordinary member of the Society. The following donations were presented: From the Architectural and Archæological Society of Liverpool. From the Société Archéologique de l'Orléanais. Bulletins, No. 43 and 44. From the Kilkenny and S.E. of Ireland Archæological Society. From the Committee of the Gallery of Inventions and Science. Fourth Annual Report. The following objects of interest were exhibited :— By Mr. Waterhouse, Honorary Secretary. A series of photographic copies of autographs. By Mr. Towson. Specimens of Zinco-photography and other objects produced by photographic processes. The following Paper was read : THE HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY TO 1844, by J. T. Towson, F.R.G.S. 18th February, 1865. SCIENTIFIC SECTION. NICHOLAS WATERHOUSE Esq. in the Chair. The following donations were presented : From the Royal Society. Proceedings, No. 70. From the Royal Geographical Society. From the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 3. Appendix to the Makerstown Magnetical and Meteorological From Mr. Gardner. Section of the trunk of a Lignum-vitæ tree, apparently hollowed in the centre by decay and having, in the hollow, about six inches in diameter, and extending through the block, which measures nearly eighteen inches in length, a quantity of wax so moulded as to indicate that a swarm of bees had hived in it. ON SOME RESULTS OF THE CENSUS OF THE DEAF AND DUMB FOR 1861, by David Buxton, F.R.S.L., Honorary Curator. 2nd March, 1865. ARCHEOLOGICAL SECTION. WILLIAM BURKE Esq., Treasurer, in the Chair. The following donations were presented :- The Reliquary, vol. v, No. 19, edited by Ll. Jewitt. 1. Through the kindness of the owner, R. B. Sheridan Esq., M.P., *Transactions, p. 231. 2. Two Roman knives, uncovered from the ancient forest-bog of the Cheshire sea-shore by the recent spring tides. They answer respectively to the culter secespita and culter excoriatorius (slaughtering and skinning knives;) and a specimen of the latter, of precisely analogous form, found in a Pompeian house, as shewn in a work of the Rev. Edward Trollope, F.S.A. 3. A large-paper copy of the Illustrations of Ancient Roman Remains of North Hants, by the late E. T. Artis Esq., F.S.A. By Mr. Waterhouse. A kajik or canoe and two other small articles carved from the horn of the walrus by one of the Esquimaux converts attached to the Moravian Mission in Labrador. By Mr. A. Craig Gibson. Numerous views of points of interest in and about the town of THE LAKE-LAND OF LANCASHIRE; PART I, HAWKSHEAD TOWN, CHURCH AND SCHOOL,* by A. Craig Gibson, F.S.A., Hon. Librarian. 9th March, 1865. LITERARY SECTION. Rev. A. HUME, D.C.L. &c., Vice-President, in the Chair. The following donations were presented :— From the Royal Astronomical Society. From the Royal Dublin Society. From the Author. Essayists and Essay-Writing: an Address delivered at the opening of the Eleventh Session of the Undergraduate Philosophical Society of the University of Dublin. The following objects of interest were exhibited : By Mr. Waterhouse. The Historie of Plantes intreating of Medicinal Rootes and Herbes that purge the Body, also of noysome weedes, and dangerous plantes, their sundrie fashions, names and natures, their vertuous operations and dangers. Compiled by the learned D. Rembert Dodens (Rembertus Dodonaeus) nowe Phisition to the Emperour, an English black-letter translation, n.d. * Transactions, p. 139. By Mr. E. F. Evans. Specimen of a petrifaction formed on the extremity of the branch of a tree, on which several others of like character were observed, growing on Salt Cay Island, New Providence. Its material appears to be pure lime. By Mr. Thomas Gibson. Several specimens of Scolopendrium vulgare. By Mr. Towson. Numerous specimens of the same plant, including two rare living varieties, one from Frodsham, the other from Killarney. The following Paper was read : ON THE VARIETIES OF THE SCOLOPENDRIUM VULGARE FOUND IN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, WITH ILLUSTRATIVE SPECIMENS, by John Thomas Towson, F.R.G.S. Ferns take their place in the Linnæan system of plants as belonging to the twenty-fourth class-Cryptogamia. This includes all the genera in which seed is not produced by the fructifying process which takes place in flowers as in the higher order of plants. Ferns generally are propagated by that which, when it leaves the parent plant, is denominated a spore. Before seeds are matured the fertilizing process is perfected. But not so with spores. They are separated from the parent plant when a prothalus is developed. In this the fertilizing process, similar to that which occurs in flowers before the seed is produced, takes place. Still this great distinction, which Linnæus considered of sufficient importance, to distinguish the Cryptogamia from other classes of vegetables, ceases to exist in certain species of Ferns. Some foreign species are denominated viviparous or proliferous. With them the infant plant is perfected on the frond of the parent fern. We have no case of an indigenous fern, the normal condition of which is viviparous. But we have numerous exotics of this character. We might imagine all viviparous belonged to a different genus not to be found in this country, if the contrary were not proved by finding varieties of well known ferns, here indigenous, which are viviparous, although the species, from which they have been derived, propagate by spores, as with the generality of ferns. This is the case with some varieties of the Scolopendrium vulgare. I have a specimen of Scolopendrium vulgare gathered in Derbyshire last year, known as vivo-marginatum. The species of ferns are distinguished by the arrangement of the sori and indusia. The former being a collection of spore-cases, and the latter the membrane that covers over the sori. The Scolopendrium normarly differs from asplenium in the former having a double line of sori and indusia, but in the latter a single line. Yet in the case of Scolopendrium, variety gymnosorum, we have no indusium and the double line of sori more or less separated. We have referred to the before-named varieties of the Scolopendrium as being the most divergent from the normal plant, but we have upwards of sixty other varieties described by Moore, diverging more or less from the normal type. These may be classified-with reference to the abnormal arrangements connected with the propagation of the species, as already described the form of the fronds and the size of the plant generally. In form no fern varies so greatly as the Scolopendrium. The Sagittifolium has fronds the form of the head of an arrow. The Polyschides, the edge of the frond is often so broken as scarcely to be recognised as a Scolopendrium. The Marginatum has the edge of the frond split so as to exhibit a free membrane under the surface of the frond. The Muricatum with a furrowed surface. The Crispum with fronds curled and undulated in various forms. Multifidum having a crest crisped at the apex of the frond, including numerous varieties. Ramosum, the stipes branched bearing several fronds. Laceratum, containing numerous sub-varieties. And the Cornutum, in which the midrib is excurrent below and, in the case of a variety I gathered at Frodsham, on the excurrent midrib a smaller frond. Another distinction of varieties is in the size of the fronds. The normal size of the fronds is from six to eighteen inches in length; the dwarf form varies from three to six inches, and the pigmy from one to three inches. I believe that the pigmy varieties are much more numerous than are generally recognized, many of them, when met with, having been mistaken for young plants. It has been stated that many of these varieties are the result of cultivation. I do not believe that any variety has originated with the gardener. He, however, has observed that when in the natural condition a fern deviates from the normal type, the offspring will most probably diverge into other varieties. When a new variety is met with, it is carefully provided for and seedlings are reared, and thus many varieties are preserved, which if left to nature would have been lost. For instance, Mr. A. Clapham a few years since gathered a fern of the submarginato-multifidum variety; from this he reared at least ten varieties, and no doubt many other varieties have been derived from this one stock. It becomes a matter for enquiry, when so many varieties are known to proceed from one common stock, whether ferns met with in other climates, generally regarded as distinct species, are not varieties of some well known fern generally bearing a different name. Whether the distinctions now employed in separating genera and species may not ultimately be found only to distinguish a variety from a variety, a result owing to accidents of soil and climate; and when once a variety is called into existence, in most instances it is persistent, there being no tendency to return to the parent type. 16th March, 1865. SCIENTIFIC SECTION. Rev. A. HUME, D.C.L. &c., Vice-President, in the Chair. |