356 THE^ROYAL SOCIETY OF VICTORIA. 



is " On the Manufacture of Paper from JN'ative Plants," by Mr. Newbeiy, in 

 vvhicli lie drew our attention to the importance to be attached to the discovery of 

 raw material suited to paper-making', and pointed out that we had several indi- 

 genous plants fitted for this ]ini'pose growing in considerable profusion on our 

 waste lands ; he especially called attention to two grasses, the Xerofes langi- 

 folia and a variety of Lepiclospcrmaj the fibre of both of which he believed would 

 be of great value for making common paper, and for mixing Avith rags for white 

 paper. Mr. Newbery's valuable suggestion will, no doubt, be practically tested 

 so soon as the new paper mills on the Yara commence operations. 



The second communication of this class was a paper " On Colonial Wines," 

 by the Rev. Mr. Bleasdalt. This placed before you a large amount of practical 

 information respecting our vineyards and the wines produced from them. He 

 gave the results of his chemical inquiries into several samples, and indicated the 

 conditions on which he considered the success of Australian wine-making to 

 depend. 



]\Ir. Newbery's paper " On the Analysis of our Mineral Waters" forms another 

 contribution bearing on our natural resources. The writer gives the analysis he 

 has made of the waters from several of our quartz mines remarkable for con- 

 taining a large percentage of chloride of potassiimi, as well as of the Ballan 

 springs, the latter found to contain a large percentage of carbonate of soda, 

 with carbonate of lime and magnesia, with 416 cubic inches per gallon of free 

 carbonic acid. This w.ater, as yon are aware, has now come into extensive use 

 under the name of " Ballan Seltzer Water ;" it forms a very refreshing and 

 pleasant beverage, and may, no doubt, be medicinally useful in some cases. 



At the June meeting Professor Halford brought before us his paper " On the 

 Appearances of the Blond after Death by Snake Poisoning." At the October 

 meeting, also, he contributed some further observations on the same subject. 



You will lemember that in April last, a gentleman died in Melbourne from th« 

 bite of a cobra-di-capella, which he had brought from India, and thouglit to be 

 fangless. At the post mortem examination Professor Ilalford, remarking the 

 great fluidity of the blood, examined some under the microscope, when it appeared 

 to him to contain a great number of colorless cells of a larger size than any 

 usually seen in l)lood. Further examination corrol.>orated this fact ; he observed 

 numerous cells much larger than blood corpuscles, with delicate translucent cell- 

 walls, each cell containing one, two, or more nuclei, and also noted a peculiar 

 macula or nipple on the cell wall after the application of magenta dye. lie 

 killed a dog with poison taken from the glands of the same cobra, and other 

 animals with poison taken from Australian snakes, and after death in every case 

 the blood was found fluid and full of these cells. By later observations he was 

 led to believe that the growth of these cells commences immediately the poison 

 gets into the blood, and continues to grow even after death ; so tliat 12 hours 

 after death blood taken from an animal that died from the poison in 10 minutes 

 will be in the same stage as regards the cell growth as that taken one hour after 

 death from an animal that sinvived the poison 11 hours. 



Considering the importance of this subject, I make no apology for troubling 

 you with a succinct account of my personal experience concerning Professor 

 Halford's discovery. Some little time since I had, in company with a friend, a 

 good observer with the microscope, an opportunity of witnessing the progress of 

 this cell growth. A dog bitten by an Australian tiger snake at 9 a. m. died in 

 an hour; at 3 o'clock some l)lood taken from a vein was dark and (piite fluid. 

 Under the microscope the red and white corpuscles appeared normal in size and 

 shape, l)ut were moving about free in the fluid liquor sungainis, and not sticking 

 together in rouleaus, as is usual with healthy blood. Among these corpuscles 

 we observed spaces where some apparently structureless granular matter had 

 pushed them aside. An hour after a fresh supply of blood from another veiu 

 showed us, among what appeared to be the same kind of granular matter, large 



