Tenth Annual Report of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club

Abstract

WE are glad to see from the Committee's report that the condition of this club is in every respect satisfactory, both as to numbers, finances, and, most important of all, amount and value of work done by the members. The first part of the Report is concerned with the six summer excursions of the club in 1872, interesting accounts of the history, antiquities, and natural history of the various places visited being given. Of the papers contained in the volume, we mention the following:—“The Lignite of Antrim and their Relation to the True Coal,” by Mr. William Gray, in which the author considers the subject both geologically and economically. The Rev. Dr. MacIlwaine, in a paper on “Life,” gives an account of the various theories as to the nature of life held by philosophers from the earliest times to the present day. A different aspect of the same subject is discussed in Mr. Robert Smith's paper on “Darwinism,” in which the author briefly sketches the nature of the Darwinian theory of development, and gives practical exemplifications of its working in every-day life. Mr. William Gray gives an entertaining account of some of the doings of the notorious “Flint Jack” in Ireland; and the longest paper in the volume, by the Rev. Edmund M'Clure, is one of considerable ethnological value, on “Family Names as indicative of the Distribution of Races in Ireland.” The Society offers a considerable number of prizes, competition for which will no doubt tend to encourage the practical study of the various subjects with which the Society is concerned. Altogether it seems to be in a thoroughly healthy condition.

Tenth Annual Report of the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club.

(Belfast: 1873.)