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

The minutes of the last meeting of the fifty-sixth session. were read and signed, after which the HONORARY SECRETARY read the following

REPORT.

The Council of the Literary and Philosophical Society, in presenting their report for the fifty-sixth session, find themselves again in the pleasant position of being able to congratulate the members upon the success which continues to attend the proceedings of their Society. Every meeting of the last session was well attended, and the papers which

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The Society next proceeded to elect the officers for the year and the following gentlemen were appointed :

Vice-Presidents:

Mr. J. A. PICTON,

Dr. NEVINS,

Rev. H. H. HIGGINS.

Treasurer:

Mr. I. BYERLEY.

Hon. Secretary:

Mr. JAMES BIRCHALL.

Members of Council ·

Mr. HIGGINSON,

Rev. W. B. BANISTER,

Mr. ARCHER,

Mr. MOORE,

Mr. M'FARLANE GRAY,

Mr. M. C. JONES,

Mr. G. H. MORTON,

Mr. A. J. MOTT,

Rev. J. SEPHTON.

The Associates were then re-elected, on the recom

mendation of the Council.

FIRST ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, 21st October, 1867.

DR. NEVINS, VICE-PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and signed. Messrs. E. K. Muspratt and William Henry Dixon were unanimously elected ordinary members.

Mr. Christian Flück exhibited a flint saw, a knife made of bone, bone pins, piece of roebuck horn, and other implements, recently found in a Lacustrine dwelling in the lake of Morat, in Switzerland.

Mr. T. J. Moore exhibited some bones of the Dodo, lately presented to the Free Public Museum, by Mr. Walmsley Stanley, per Mr. R. C. Doyle and Mr. J. T. Towson; also the cast of the under jaw of a Mastodon, the original of which, with the greater part of the skeleton, was lately discovered near Albany, New York. The cast was presented to the Museum by Professor Hall, state geologist at Albany, and was brought to Liverpool by his son, Mr. C. E. Hall, who was present at the meeting. Mr. Moore read the following extract from a letter from Mr. R. B. N. Walker, Corresponding Member of the Society:—

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"R. Fernan Vas, Camma, July 13, 1867

"On the 26th ult., a few days after my arrival here, one of the men who had accompanied me into the interior came to see me, and asked for powder and ball to enable him to fulfil his promise of shooting a gorilla for me.

He being a professed gorilla hunter, and having once killed no less than four of those apes in one day, I immediately gave him what he required. He went out the next day, but was unable to meet with the object of his search, and for various reasons was prevented trying again until the 6th instant, when, on rising early in the morning, he heard the cry of a gorilla in the bush close to his village, and immediately started, accompanied by another lad, who was unarmed, with the exception of a hatchet to clear a passage through the dense bush. Guided by the noise made by the animal, the hunter soon obtained a view of him, and fired, wounding him severely in the right shoulder, and breaking one of his huge canine teeth. Reloading he fired again, striking him on the back, and breaking one or two of his ribs. The animal was unusually tenacious of life, and my man, having become separated from his companion, who carried part of the ammunition, had to go in search of him to procure some powder; when he returned, and at the sixth shot, the gorilla gave up the ghost. The spot where he fell was two or three miles from the house I am living in, and people had to be fetched to carry the huge beast, yet by 9.30 a. m. he was brought to my door. He proved to be a good sized fellow, a male, but not nearly so large as the one whose skeleton I presented to the Derby Museum, but nearly, if not quite, as large as the fine specimen given by Mr. Duckworth to the same institution. Now, as the hunter was only out twice in search of a gorilla, and on the second occasion soon met with and shot one, not three miles from the sea, and close to a village, I am confirmed in my previously entertained opinion that gorillas are by no means so difficult to obtain as has been represented, especially here at Camma, during the rainy season, when the fruit of the Mbimo tree is ripe.

"R. B. N. WALKER."

Mr. F. J. Jeffery, F.G.H.S., called attention to the proposed visit of the British Association to Liverpool in 1869, and suggested that it would be desirable to hold a Centenary Festival in commemoration of the births of the great men born in 1769, in conjunction with the visit, should the Association accept the invitation which had been sent; and seeing the names of illustrious foreigners which appear on the list, he proposed that the celebration should be international. Among the names mentioned were those of Wellington, Napoleon I., Sir T. Lawrence, Humboldt, Cuvier, Forsythe, the inventor of percussion caps; Arndt, the German poet; Marshals Soult and Ney, Rev. W. Jay, of Bath, Sir M. I. Brunel, and the younger Watt, the Engineers.

The following paper was then read: