The Associates of the Society were next re-elected, and the special business of the Annual Meeting being then concluded, the President read his First Inaugural Address.* There was a large attendance of members and friends, and many ladies were also present.

FIRST ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, October 15th, 1877.

JOHN J. DRYSDALE, M.D., M.R.C.S., PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

Mr. Alfred Higginson, M.R.C.S.; Lord Lindsay, F.R.A.S., Dr. Günther, British Museum; Dr. Adolphus Ernst, Caracas; Dr. Leidy, Philadelphia; Dr. Franz Steindachner, Vienna; Rev. Dr. Tristram, F.R.S.; and Count Pourtalés, Harvard College, Massachusetts, were elected Honorary Members.

Mr. J. Yate Johnson, London, and Mr. R. B. N. Walker, Gaboon, West Africa; Mr. Edward Dukinfield Jones, São Paulo, Brazil; Miss Horatia K. F. Gatty, Ecclesfield Vicarage, Sheffield; Dr. Allen, Jamaica; Dr. George Bennett, Sydney; Mr. Andrew Murray, London; and Dr. David Walker, California, were elected Corresponding Members; and Messrs. Edwin Woodhead, H. Mott, F. B. Mott, W. E. Soltau, and F. W. Birchall were elected Ordinary Members.

There was a large attendance of ladies and gentlemen, and the proceedings consisted in the main of a conversazione on Natural Science.

An interesting series of living exotic plants from the Botanic Gardens of Liverpool was exhibited by the Curator, Mr. Richardson. Some brief remarks on the botanical pecu

* See page 1.

liarities and economic value of the plants were made by the Rev. HENRY H. HIGGINS, who said that he wished to call the attention of the Society to the excellent condition in which the more strictly botanical departments of the gardens were maintained, and to the advantages thereby afforded to students.

LIST OF PLANTS EXHIBITED.

ECONOMIC PLANTS.

ORD. URTICEÆ.

Ficus elastica.

Ficus indica.

Ficus macrophylla.
Ficus religiosa.

ORD. LAURINEÆ.

Laurus cinnamomum.
Persea gratissima.
Hernandia sonora.

ORD. LEGUMINOSÆ.
Adenanthera pavonina.
Baphia nitida.
Tamarindus indica.

ORD. ASPHODELEÆ.

Phormium tenax.

Xanthorrhoea australis.

ORD. GRAMINEÆ.

Bambusa arundinacea.

Saccharum officinarum. Common Sugar Cane.

ORD. RUBIACEÆ.

Cephaëlis ipecacuanha. Ipecacuanha.

ORD. AMYRIDACEÆ.

Australia.

India.

"

Brazil.

Myroxylon peruiferum. Balsam of Peru.

Peru.

Sarracenia drummondii. Side-saddle Flower. Carolina.

The following communication was then read:

ON A FRESH-WATER SPONGE FROM BAHIA. Spongilla Coralloides. Bowerbank.

By T. HIGGIN, F.L.S.

THIS interesting species was first made known by Mr. William Bragge, of Sheffield, now an alderman of that town, and an active supporter of the Sheffield Public Museum, who presented an example of it, from the River Winguay, one of the tributaries of the Amazon, to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. This specimen was afterwards named and described by the late Dr. Bowerbank in his Monograph of the Spongillidæ, published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, in 1863. Another example, also from the same locality, exists in the Sheffield Public Museum, likewise the gift of Mr. Bragge; and the British Museum possesses a fine specimen, presented by the late Mr. McAndrew, said to have come from the fresh water of the River Paraguay. The very fine specimen before us this evening has lately been received by the Liverpool Free Museum from Mr. George Higgin, C.E., at present residing at Buenos Ayres. It was obtained by him in March last, in the Rapids of the River Uruguay, above the town of Salto, the water at the time being lower than it had ever been known to be previously; it was then only running through the fissures of the rocks, but three months afterwards the river was forty feet deep at Salto.

This fresh-water sponge differs from all other known

species of Spongilla, in appearance and in its mode of growth. All species from the South American rivers have been found to be much firmer than those from other parts of the world; but this sponge is exceedingly rigid when fresh as well as when dried, and the sarcode is very crystalline, having quite a siliceous appearance. It is quite smooth, and grows in the form of erect, long, slender, digitiform processes, rising from a more or less thin spreading base, having much of the appearance of a Halichondroid marine sponge, found in the River Mersey, which Dr. Bowerbank identified as his Isodictya varians, but is considered by Mr. H. J. Carter, to be a variety of Chalina oculata, a sponge probably of world-wide distribution. This River Mersey sponge grows in brackish water, and seems, indeed, to have a liking for fresh water, since it was found in greatest quantity in a water-course formed by a stream of fresh water issuing from the stationary engine at the old Egremont Ferry House. The Spongilla generally are of a soft texture, with a prickly appearance, and are usually found coating sticks and stones in shallow places, or embracing the small submerged branches of trees growing on the margins of rivers. Spongilla Coralloides, on the contrary, is found in the deepest parts of the river, which are probably never quite dry.

All species of Spongilla, with the exception of coralloides, are found in localities where they are subject to exposure to the air and heat during seasons of drought, or when the receding waters of rivers leave them high and dry. They must then of course perish, but the ova are protected with a thick crust, formed of siliceous spicules, of peculiar shapes specially adapted to the purpose, set in a cork-like substance. In this capsule the germ of the future sponge remains safe under the fiercest heat and most trying circumstances, until, with the return of copious rains, its native element again