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honorary members, and he thought ib might be desirable to have the power of 

 placing others also upon this list. He proposed this alteration !i t the present 

 time with reference to Dr. Sharpey, whose fame was universal, and who was now 

 retiring from all active life, and it would be doing an honour to themselves to 

 elect him as their first English honorary member. 



Mr T. C. White seconded the proposal, which was carried unanimously. 



The President invited the nomination of a gentleman to act as auditor of the 

 accounts on behalf of the members. 



Mr. Dobson was then proposed by Mr. James Smith, seconded by Mr. Gay, 

 and elected auditor by show of hands. 



Mr. T. C. White said that he had brought with him to the meeting some 

 sections of the gritty tissue of the pear ; they were not prepared from the ripe 

 fruit, but from those pears which could at this season of the year be found in 

 great abundance underneath the trees, prematurely cast off by blight. He had 

 often thought that it might be possible to get the cells of a much larger size in 

 specimens cut from very young pears in which there had not teen time for the 

 woody deiDosit to fill up the cells, and in these pears his surmises had turned out 

 correct, the cells presenting the sclerogenous deposit in various stages of 

 thickening, from a thin layerliniug the cell to that wherein a mere " lacuna" 

 is left. In addition to the specimens exhibited he had also brought with him a 

 number of sections for distribution to any member who liked to have them. In 

 mounting them he found that logwood stained them better than carmine, but 

 he thought they were best when not stained at all. His specimens were 

 mounted in a weak solution of acetate of potash, but he rather thought that 

 gelatine would be a better medium. 



Mr. F. H. Wenham thought that Mr. White would find the tissue very hard in 

 the maturer fruit ; so hard, indeed, as to require to be ground down. It was 

 very analagous to the stone in stone fruit, and the wilder the pear the harder 

 and more like a stone would this gritty tissue be found. Professor Quekctt had 

 described it, and had given figures. 



Mr. T. C. White said he knew that Professor Quekett had referred to this 

 woody tissue or sclerogen, and that bethought it allied to the shell of the cocoa- 

 nut. He should be glad to hear the President's remarks about it, seeing that it 

 came within the scope of his papers on cell growth. 



The President said that he objected to the term sclerogen altogether, and 

 looked upon it as a most objectionable and unnecessary term. It was, in fact, 

 a condition such as might go on in any part of the plant. As to any special 

 tissue called sclerogen, it was perfect nonsense. Lignification might takcaplace 

 in any of the tissues ; it was really not a special condition at all, but rather a 

 state of conversion of the tissue, and this would no doubt ia certain cases be con- 

 verted into stone. In the wild pear it was gritty, and the better the pear the 

 less hard did it become. When ground down it was one of the most beautiful 

 objects to be seen, and furnished to his mind the most beautiful evidence of 

 design as providing for the carrying on of growth and nutrition under these 

 conditions. 



The President announced that the concluding paper of his course upon cell 

 development would be taken as read that evening. 



iJr. Ingpen described a new form of achromatic prism which was being con- 

 structed for him by Mr. Browning. In this form, the prism had plane sides, 

 and the condensing lens was a plano-convex achromatic, the flat side of which 

 could be placed close to one side of the prism, or removed at pleasure. The 



