Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 597 



neutralizing each other. Hence we may conclude, that the charge of 

 the intermediate jars in a series such as described by Brande, though 

 it really depends on inductive agency, is altogether different from 

 that kind he alludes to, which may be inferred from his erroneous re- 

 presentation of the actual fact ; and the charge of the extreme sur- 

 faces is immediately the result of that action only, which several 

 electricians have called conduction, arising from the connexion of 

 these surfaces with the sources of the free electric forces. 



" The fact here described appears capable of throwing much light 

 on the corpuscular arrangement of the atoms of bodies which retain 

 an electric charge on their surfaces, or which, by a change of form 

 from mechanical pressure or difference of temperature, exhibit differ- 

 ences of electric state. In speaking of a charged electric, we may 

 consider it a pile of an infinite number of plates, each of which, ex- 

 cept the extreme surfaces, is composed of a surface of atoms, which 

 are acted on by two sets of induced electric forces, whose differences, 

 arising from their distances from the extremes, we discover when we 

 split the plate, or if it be a pile, when we separate the plates from 

 each other." 



LXXIX. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



DR. MARTIN BARRY ON THE CORPUSCLES OF THE BLOOD. 



DR. BARRY requests us to add the following, in connexion with 

 his paper on the Corpuscles of the Blood, an abstract of which 

 is given at p. 517. 



It is known that in the blood there are found " colourless glo- 

 bules " along with the red blood-discs. Dr. Barry has noticed that in 

 certain states these " globules," though pale, are not without colour. 

 Of such "globules" he has figured a considerable number in the 

 paper in question, and cannot distinguish them from bodies described 

 by him in that paper as noticed in the heart, on the one hand, and 

 at the edge of the foetal crystalline lens, on the other ; in both of 

 which situations the bodies in question are what he denominates 

 parent corpuscles of the blood. At the edge of the lens, such bodies 

 are represented by him as seen discharging discs ; which having ac- 

 quired red colouring matter, are no other than young blood-discs. 

 These discs accumulate in such quantity as to completely fill certain 

 dilated and varicose vessels, situated at the edge of the lens. The 

 discs begin to exhibit pellucid, colourless, and nearly fluid centres. 

 These centres enlarge, and in the same proportion the surrounding 

 red colouring matter is consumed ; so that the varicose vessels con- 

 tain little besides the enlarged and colourless centres of the discs. 

 This substance, derived from red blood-discs, it appears to be that, 

 exuding, enters into the formation of the lens ; and now, even in 

 the elements of the crystalline lens, red colouring matter is repro- 

 duced. Dr. Barry is unable to assign a mode of origin different 

 from that just mentioned, to the corpuscles he has traced into other 



