PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES, 



OF PHILADELPHI A^ 



[rrr " -mm 



January 11th, 1848. 



Vice President Morton in the Chair. 



A letter was read from Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, Ohio, dated 

 December 2-ith, 1847, relating to a peculiar variety of the Glow- 

 worm. 



A letter from Dr. Joel Y. Shelley, dated Hereford, Berks county, 

 Pennsylvania, in reference to some valuable fossil remains from that 

 vicinity, was read and referred to the Geological and Mineralogical 

 Committee. 



A communication was read from the Secretary of the Geological 

 Society of London, dated Somerset House, 4th of November, 1847, 

 acknowledging the receipt of recent numbers of the Proceedings. 



Dr. Morton read a letter addressed to him by Dr. R. W. Gibbes, 

 dated Columbia, S. C, December 25th, 1847, in relation to the Basil- 

 osaurus, and announcing a new fossil genus Saurocetus. 



A letter was read from Dr. William M. Carpenter, of New Orleans, 

 dated December 11th, 1847, enclosing a communication addressed to 

 the Academy, by Dr. E. Pilate, of Opelousas, S. C, dated October 29th, 

 1847, and proposing exchanges of Books or objects of Natural History. 

 Referred to the Curators. 



Dr. Leidy remarked, that the existence of the eye in the perfect 

 condition of the Cirrhopoda, has been denied by all anatomists up to 

 the present time, but its presence in the larva or imperfect stages is 

 very generally acknowledged. Several years since, having received 

 some living specimens of Balanus rugosiis adhering to an oyster, he sub- 

 mitted them to dissection, in the course of which, he noticed upon the 

 dark purple membrane which lines the shell and muscular columns 

 running to the opercula, on each side of the anterior middle line, a 

 small, round, black body, surrounded by a colourless ring or space of 

 the membrane, which, upon submitting to a low power of the micro- 

 scope, he found to be an eye, composed of a vitreous body, having 

 nearly two-thirds of its posterior part covered by pigmentum nigrum, 

 and attached to a nervous filament, which he afterwards traced to the 



PROCEED. ACAD. NAT. SCI. OF PHILADELPHIA. — VOL. IV. NO. I. 1 



