121 



October 25tli, 1872. — Chairman — Dr. R. Braithwaite, F.L.S., 

 &c., President. 



The following Donations to tlie Club were announced :— 



" The Monthly Microscopical Journal " from the Publisher. 



" Science Gossip" . ,, 



*' The Popular Science Review" ,, 



" Proceedings of the Royal Society," No. 137,... the Society. 



Annual Report and Proceedings of the Bristol") 



Natural History Society... J 



A Paper on Callograptus radicans, by Mr. ) , i . , , 



John Hopkinson _... 3 



"Proceedings of the Geologists' Association"... the Association. 



*' The American Naturalist " in exchange. 



Six Slides from Mr. Thos. Rogers. 



The thanks of the Club were unanimously voted to the donors. 



The following gentlemen were balloted for and duly elected members of the 

 Club : — Mr Frederick William Andrew, junr,, Mr. Charles G. Dunning, Mr. E. 

 W. Jones, Mr. W. H. Price, Mr. Phillip Vallance, and Mr. James Watkins, 

 L.C.P. 



The President then called upon Dr. Lionel S, Beale to read a paper. 



Dr. Beale delivered a highly interesting communication upon "Bioplasm," 

 illustrating the subject by means of colored diagrams. 



The President felt sure that all the members present would join very cordially 

 in a vote of thanks to Dr. Beale for his very valuable and interesting remarks. 

 Not having been able to follow up the subject practically, he was not himself 

 qualified to speak upon it, but he must confess that his convictions went greatly 

 with Dr. Beale in the matter. One thing just occurred to him in connection 

 with the subject, and this was that they found that after the greatest care had 

 been taken to exclude living particles from liquids, yet life had been developed 

 even after the liquids had been exposed to great heat. There must, he thought, 

 be some fallacy in supposing that such particles had been destroyed; and per- 

 haps Dr. Beale could tell them where this fallacy laid ? 



Mr. B. T. Lowne said that there was, of course, a great deal in Dr. Beale's 

 remarks with which he most cordially agreed, but he must also say that there 

 was a great deal with which he most cordially disagreed. He would not, how- 

 ever, enter into the subject then, but would like just to ask why the word vital 

 should be so much more easy to understand than the word molecular ? Molecular 

 means what we know so little about, and vital is a term about which we think 

 we know something, but about which really we know very little. 



Dr. Beale said he feared that it would not be possible then to go into the 

 question raised by the President, seeing that it would lead them into the tre- 

 mendous subject of spontaneous generation, and perhaps, after all nothing 

 which he could say would influence those who were believers in it. For his own 

 ptart, he could only say that after a most careful study of the arguments in favor 

 of the doctrine of spontaneous generation, heterogenesis, or abiogenesis, and a 

 careful examination of the experiments which were adduced in its support, he 

 could not see good reason for accepting them as at all conclusive, although there 

 were undoubtedly a great many persons of high standing — Pouchet, Owen, and 

 many more — who thought otherwise. One thing seemed to him very re- 

 markable, namely;, that every living form which had been "produced" in the 



