87 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



MEETING 



Held on the 16th December, 1914, at 20 Hanover Square, W. t 

 Mr. E. Heron-Allen, F.L.S. F.G.S., etc., Vice-President, in 

 the Chair. 



The Minutes of the Meeting of November 18, 1914, were read, 

 and, when confirmed, were signed by the Chairman. 



Mr. J. E. Barnard gave a lecture on " The X-rays in Relation to 

 the Microscope," which he elucidated both by apparatus and by diagrams. 

 Illustrations of his photographic work on the Foraminifera by X-ray 

 methods were thrown on the screen, and the specimens described by 

 Mr. Arthur Earland. 



At the close of Mr. Barnard's communication, 



The Chairman (Mr. Heron- Allen) said : Mr. Barnard has been good 

 enough to furnish me with a duplicate set of the slides of Foraminifera 

 which he has exhibited, and to discuss with me his views upon the questions 

 involved in the very remarkable demonstration which he has given us 

 this evening. I am much indebted to him, because it has given me 

 an opportunity of considering the matter more carefully than is possible 

 had I come fresh to it at this Meeting ; and on an occasion so im- 

 portant as this is it behoves one to weigh carefully what he says in 

 commenting upon the paper. I feel that this is the more important 

 because I think it is more than likely that some day the recorded 

 minutes of this Meeting will be referred to by students as marking 

 the commencement of a new era in the history of biological research. 

 I have no hesitation in saying, and I say it with a full sense of the 

 responsibility which I incur, that during the period (now close upon a 

 quarter of a century) in which I have been a Fellow of this Society, 

 and have read its Proceedings when I have not been able to attend 

 its Meetings, the communication of Mr. Barnard this evening is by far 

 the most weighty pronouncement that has been made before the Society. 

 I will even go so far as to say that the ultimate goal which thoughtful 

 biologists (endowed with that quality of imagination which Tyndall, 

 Huxley, Lankester, and others have described as an indispensable factor 

 in the equipment of a biological researcher) must foreshadow as a result 

 of Mr. Barnard's work, may be of an importance standing hardly second 

 to the discovery of the circulation of the blood. 



