OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 257 



The careful consideration of this subject seems also to be well 

 adapted to throw light upon some of the more hidden ques- 

 tions of practical mechanics The principles upon which' 

 his theory was based are, that the whole amount of resistance 

 is measured by the amount of change of form, of compression, 

 or of vibration with which the rolling surfaces are left ; and 

 these are themselves dependent upon the nature of the sur- 

 faces as yielding or hard, elastic or inelastic, and upon the 

 amount of pressure and the extent of the surface of contact. 



The subject was further discussed by Mr. C. Jackson, Jr., 

 Mr. Treadvvell, and the President. Mr. Treadwell concurred 

 with Professor Peirce in his views, except that he was in- 

 clined to attribute the loss of force, in the case of elastic 

 bodies, rather to the slow recovery by the particles of their 

 previous position, than to their vibrations. 



Dr. Holmes exhibited the peculiar bone corpuscles shown 

 and described by him to the Boston Society for Medical Im- 

 provement in the year 1847, together with one of the draw- 

 ings of them taken at the same period, by Mr. Mcllvaine, 

 under his direction. These corpuscles, remarkable for their 

 regular, sharply defined, and often yellowish nucleus, are found 

 in the cancellated structure of human bones. They are iden- 

 tical with those described by M. Robin in the Gazette Medicale 

 for December 22, 1849, under the name of medullary cells. 



Professor Peirce referred to a paper on the subject of heat, 

 formerly prepared by Mr. U. A. Boyden, and expressed a de- 

 sire that it might receive the attention of the Rumford Com- 

 mittee. 



Three hundred and forty-fourth meeting. 

 March 4, 1851. — Monthly Meeting. 



The President in the chair. 



Professor Peirce made some remarks respecting the name to 

 be assigned to the new planet, and thought it should be called 

 Clio, rather than Victoria. 



VOL. II. 33 



