under the roots of the largest trees, where they lodge by companies together. Sometimes, when we came to take them, for want of other refuge, they would climb into the trees to hide themselves, where we were enforced to follow them."

From these and other examples which could be adduced, -for the voyages of Hakluyt, Purchas, and other collectors abound in them,- it is readily to be seen that while travellers were eager to collect facts, and extend the limits of human knowledge, they were as yet mere children in scientific observation; they gazed at everything with all that bewildered astonishment which marks the observations of childhood, exaggerating the mysteries of things which they saw but could not comprehend, and lending a credulous ear to every tale, which to them was always the more credible in proportion to the contrast it presented to their own experience of natural life. With all the facts and fables thus collected by so numerous a multitude of travellers, those who observed with any scientific perception, or with the object of classifying and arranging the knowledge they obtained, were few and far between. The first man who seems to have perceived a great typical uniformity in nature, was Belon, who travelled through Egypt and the Levant in the sixteenth century; and our own countrymen, Ray and Willoughby, at the close of the next century, were the first zoologists who made use of comparative anatomy. These two scholars, finding the history of nature very defective, agreed between themselves to travel through Europe, and reduce the several tribes of animals and plants to a method, and to give accurate descriptions of the several species, from a strict survey of them. They dissected every animal, of which they gave an account, and divided all animals into two classes; those with blood, breathing through lungs, and those without blood, breathing through gills. Their researches, however, do not belong to

the period now under review; but so much has been stated to show that, as their works were the standard of zoological information at the close of the seventeenth century, when the establishment of the Royal Society had marked an era in the history of scientific investigation, Elizabethan knowledge of this subject must have been very imperfect and obscure.

The science of botany, and its relation to geographical flora, appear to have been better understood than zoology. Attempts were made to acclimatise plants; and botanical gardens, containing the finest productions of Asia and America, were established in the chief cities of France and Italy before the end of the sixteenth century. The classification of plants according to their organs of fructification was generally adopted; the works of Gesner and Belon, and Dr. Turner's New Herbal, published between 1551 and 1568, being the chief authorities. Botanists, however, entertained very confused notions of the order of species of plants; they still relied more upon the works of the ancients than upon their own researches; they often made very bold assertions upon no other authority than simple theory; and those who travelled for the purpose of acquiring geographical knowledge, frequently gave the most fanciful accounts of the plants they had seen in foreign lands.

I have now passed under review some of the salient points in the principles of physical geography, as they were understood in the Elizabethan age. From all that has been advanced, it will I think be seen that the limits which confined the knowledge of these may be emphatically described in these two words, credulity and speculation. Where human intellect was unable to penetrate through the mists which shrouded the causes of natural phenomena from men's bewildered understanding, it was not afraid to supply the lack of knowledge with the boldest and most extraordinary conjectures. Side by side with this eagerness to discover that

which was unknown, there existed a pertinacious attachment to old opinions-an almost unconquerable reluctance to surrender the teachings, false as they were, which former ages had bequeathed. This is one of the paradoxes of this age of paradoxes-an extreme deference to authority, yet an avidity for new theories; an unquestioning faith in the veracity of ancient fables, yet a persistent opposition to the truth of principles which all natural phenomena, then and since observed, have established as eternally true. This remarkable paradox is accountable only by the fact that the Elizabethan age was one of transition, in philosophy, as well as in politics and religious doctrines. Old modes of thought and fashions of reasoning were gradually fading away, and being replaced by new arguments, and a keener perception of the essence of things. Every department of human inquiry was being sifted and questioned; and just as men's minds were prone, or otherwise, to receive deductions, there arose the two great sections, those whose finer sense convinced, or love of novelty induced them to believe every new speculation, every fresh account of travellers; and those with whom an implicit belief in the teachings of their fathers was a cherished sentiment, and who therefore lent a ready ear to the most absurd stories, when they contributed to the confirmation of the ancient legends; but who, on the other hand, resolutely rejected a theory, merely because it was destructive of all previously received ideas on the same subject. These appear to me to be plain and fair conclusions, from the various facts and speculations I have described in this paper, and I feel that they are capable of being very much further developed, did leisure admit of my entering into so important a subject.

SECOND ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, NOVEMBER 4th, 1867.

The REV. C. D. GINSBURG, LL.D., PRESIDENT,
in the Chair.

Messrs. J. Fenwick Allen, and J. Bramwell, were unanimously elected ordinary members.

The President then referred to the loss which the Society has sustained in the death of Dr. Birkenhead, expressing his hope that some member of the Society, intimately acquainted with Dr. Birkenhead, would prepare a short notice of his life, to appear in the Society's Proceedings.*

Mr. Astrup Cariss then read the preliminary portion of a paper on

ORGANISATION IN PHILANTHROPIC WORK, WITH SUGGESTIONS HAVING SPECIAL REFERENCE TO LIVERPOOL.

*A Memoir of Dr. Birkenhead will appear in the next annual Report of the Society.

THIRD ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, November 18th, 1867.

The Rev. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A., VICE-PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

Mr. H. W. Biggs was unanimously elected an Ordinary Member.

Mr. T. T. Moore exhibited a fine stuffed specimen of the Tatou, or giant Armadillo (Priodontesgigas), lately added to the Free Public Museum.

The Rev. H. H. Higgins made some meteorological observations illustrative of the old adage

The evening red, and the morning grey,
Are two fine signs of one fine day.

Mr. B. L. Benas exhibited a copper coin, about 3lb. weight avoirdupoise, of the reign of Frederick, King of Sweden, 1745, which was issued because of the scarcity of silver and gold, and passed current for one dollar.

The following Paper was then read :—