NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume VIII, Issue 689, 10 March 1852, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND SOCIETY.

A meeting of the members of the New Zealand Society was held on Friday even- . at the Council Chamber, when the chair was taken by his Excellency E. J. Eyre, Esq., as Vice-President of the Society. After the usual business of the evening, Mr. Lyon read a brief report upon the discovery of coal in the Canterbury Settlement, which he had forwarded to Mr. Godley. Some specimens of coal from the locality, and small slabs containing impressions of fossil ferns characteristic of the coal measures, were also exhibited, and from our present amount of information on the subject the specimens may be said to indicate as good coal as any which has hitherto been discovered in New Zealand. The Secretary read a paper descriptive of the structure and peculiarities of a species of Nitella, which he had met with in a stream in the . upper Hutt district, and exhibited to the members the circulation in the cells of the plant under the microscope. A specimen of a fossil stem of a tree which had been dug out of a bed of blue clav, from a depth of 24 feet, close to Molesworth-street (opposite Mr. Bell’s house) was also exhibited, and by an examination under the microscope proved to be of the coniferous or fir familv. A few books purchased for the library were laid on the table, and the members were informed that the library and museum could be consulted every Friday after seven o’clock in the evening. 1