227 



likely that nutriment might be diffused through it, regarding it as the living 

 material of the structure. A little doubt seemed to have been thrown by Mr. 

 Lowne as to the existence of Krause's membrane, but he thought this was 

 quite plainly to be seen, and that there was no difficulty in showing it. 

 Having drawn a diagram upon the board, he pointed out that a fibre showed 

 dark and light portions as described, and that in the dark portion a middle 

 dark line could very readily be demonstrated — this was Krause's membrane. 

 He thought it was certainly not due to any optical effect, but to the existence 

 of a different material, and that the rods were separated by a more abundant 

 quantity of plasma. In each little group of these rod-like structures there 

 was another differentiation producing light patches, which were probably due 

 to more or less fusiform expansions. He had not seen any evidence of the 

 continuity of the rods across the clear spaces. Here they always seemed to 

 be interrupted, the clear space beiDg crossed by Krause's membrane. He 

 thought, however, that he should only be expressing the feeling of the mem- 

 bers of the Club, as well as his own, by hoping that Mr. Lowne would give 

 them a demonstration of the subject on one of their gossip nights, in which 

 case he should be very pleased to bring up some of his ancient specimens for 

 comparison. 



Mr. Karop thought the evidence as to the existence of Krause's membrane 

 was not very conclusive. The fact that a small nematode worm had been 

 seen to crawl up inside a fibre, the substance of which closed up again after 

 it, seemed to show that this so-called membrane was not a membrane at all 

 in the general sense of the term. 



Professor Stewart thought this would be quite possible supposing the 

 membrane to be viscous and not solid. In such case a nematode might 

 pass through just as a penny could pass through the film of a soap-bubble 

 without rupturing it, or as white blood corpuscles passed through tissues 

 There was no need to suppose that the worm passing through necessarily 

 made a hole, except in the sense in which a suicide was said to " make a 

 hole in the water." 



Mr. E. M. Nelson said he had been examining muscular fibre, not with 

 any idea of studying it physiologically, but just to see what could be done 

 with it optically. For this purpose he took a portion of the muscle of a pig 

 and selected an ultimate fibril measuring in section not more than the 

 tiooo mcc 5 an d in which, if the bands were all the same size, they would 

 have measured the gg-spo inch. Drawn upon the black-board, he showed 

 that this fibril was ^crossed by a number of lines, some being white, others 

 dark, black, or very black, and so fine that in some cases they almost 

 appeared beaded. — It was a fact that some people always saw beads in a 

 horizontal line if only it was fine enough. He tried this object just in the 

 same way as he did diatoms, and was quite sure that there were no con- 

 tinuous vertical lines running down it, but there was something of a waxy 

 appearance, which might divide it into three. 



Mr. T. F. Smith said he had no physiological knowledge of the subject, 

 but he had examined an ultimate fibre, the diameter of which was about 

 the 30000 inch, and drew on the board the appearance which it presented to 



