SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 151 



SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE. 



THE Microscopical Society of London held their first meeting on 

 Wednesday, January 29th, at the Horticultural Society's Rooms, No. 

 21, Regent St. The meeting was attended by upwards of a hundred 

 members and visitors. 



The President, Prof. Owen, announced that since the provisional 

 meeting on the 20th of December, for the purpose of forming the So- 

 ciety, the number of members had encreased to one hundred and ten ; 

 and a further addition of twenty-nine names was announced in the 

 course of the evening, making a total of one hundred and thirty -nine 

 original members of the Society. (It having been determined that 

 those who joined the Society on or before the first night of meeting, 

 should be considered original members). 



Mr. Owen communicated a paper *0n the application of microscopic 

 examinations of the structure of teeth to the determination of fossil 

 remains.' After alluding to the essential service rendered by the mi- 

 croscope to the chemist, mineralogist, and vegetable physiologist, he 

 proceeded to offer a few examples of the utility of the microscope to 

 the geologist, when applied to the investigation of the structure of fos- 

 silized teeth. 



The first example adduced was that of the Saurocephalus, an ex- 

 tinct fossil animal which had been referred to the class of Reptiles. — 

 After pointing out the distinctive characters of the microscopic texture 

 of the teeth in reptiles and fishes, it was shown that the Saurocephalus, 

 according to this test, unquestionably belonged to the latter class, and 

 that it most closely resembled the Sphyrcena, among recent fishes, in 

 its dental structure. 



The second instance was the Basilosaunis of Dr. Harlan, which had 

 been referred to the class Reptilia, and the double-fanged structure of 

 its teeth had, on the strength of its supposed saurian affinities, been 

 adduced to weaken the arguments in favour of the mammiferous nature 

 of certain fossils from the Stonesfield oolite. Mr. Owen, after describ- 

 ing the microscopic characters of the teeth of the Basilosaunis, showed 

 that it deviated from the saurian structure in this respect, as widely as 

 the Saurocephalus, but that the modification of its dental structure 

 resembled most closely that of the cachalot and herbivorous Cetacea. 



Lastly, Mr. Owen alluded to the difference in the views entertained 

 by Cuvier and M. de Blainville as to the affinities of the Megatherium, 

 which was referred by the one to the family of the sloths, and by the 

 other to that of the armadilloes : after explaining the well-marked dif- 

 ferences in the microscopic characters of the dental structure in these 

 two families of the so-called Edentata, Mr. Owen proceeded to describe 

 the structure of the teeth of the Megatherium^ and to show that in its 

 close resemblance to the dental structure of the sloths, it confirmed the 

 views of the great founder of the science of fossil remains. 



Mr. Jackson then read a short paper, drawing the attention of the 

 Society to a mode of mounting the compound microscope, which dif- 

 fers in some particulars from the methods generally adopted. The 

 principal object to be kept in view in the construction of this instrument 



