CORNELirS VAlfLEY 51 



Varley wrote, but in a much earlier paper on the use of the microscope 

 in vol. 48 of the Transactions of the Society of Arts (1831), the 

 structure of, and circulation in, Cliara was described at considerable 

 length. This paper gives evidence of an immense amount of careful 

 work, and it appears that the author had hundreds of the germinating 

 plants under observation. A number of figures of the various parts 

 of the plant, which in this instance was evidently C vulgaris, accom- 

 panied the paper (t. 5. ff. 31-50), and these though rougher and less 

 complete than those of the 1845 paper clearly show many important 

 details of structure. They include drawings of the young plants with 

 the rhizoid nodes and proembryonic whorl, a " branch with a naked 

 base," a section of the oogonium and oospore walls and of the lime- 

 shell, which Varley styles " the seed-skin the shell and the tubular 

 envelope." The lime-shell is aptly described as " quite brittle, some- 

 thing like egg-shell, white and transparent." In the earlier jiart of 

 the paper, with all the enthusiasm of the expert "glass and brass" 

 man, he enlarges on the construction of the microscope, and the most 

 efficient methods of lighting &c.,.with a view to obtaining the very 

 best optical results. The following volume of the Transactions^ 

 xlix. ii (1833) pp. 179-194, contained a "Letter from Mr. C. Yarley 

 in addition to his Observations on the Circulation in Chara vulgaris 

 already published." In vol. 1. pp. 159-190, t. 7 (1836), in a paper 

 entitled " Mr. G. Varley on his Vial Microscope," still further infor- 

 mation is given as to the Chara, and there is in addition a description 

 and figure of Nitella tenuissima from Cambridgeshire under the 

 name of N. hyalina, to wdiich species it had then been referred. 

 It is no wonder that these excellent papers and illustrations have 

 escaped general notice, appearing as they do under such unlikely 

 titles. Varley evidently gave a great deal of attention to the con- 

 struction of apparatus for the continuous examination of living 

 plants and animals. Braun, in his paper already mentioned, refers 

 to Varley as being the first to observe the exit of the antherozoids 

 from the cells of the antheridial filaments. 



The following particulars are mostly gleaned from Cosmo Monk- 

 house's articles in the Dictionary of National Biograpliy and 

 Mr. A. T. Story's book, James Holmes and John Varley, Yov the 

 loan of the latter, and for further information, I am indebted to the 

 courtesy of Mr. Percy Varley, a grandson of the subject of this 

 notice. 



Cornelius Varley belonged to a particularly gifted family. He 

 was the second son of Kichard Varley by his marriage with Hannah 

 Fleetwood, who, there is some i-eason to believe, was a direct 

 descendant of« General Charles Fleetwood by his marriage wnth 

 Bridget, daughter of Oliver Cromwell. Not much is known of 

 Richard Varley, but, according to Story, he was " a man of some 

 mechanical ability and of considerable scientific attainments." His 

 family consisted of five children, of whom four — John, Cornelius, 

 William Fleetwood, and Elizabeth (who married William Mulready, 

 II. A.) — distinguished themselves as artists. John, the eldest, wdiom 

 Monkhouse summarises as " landscajie ])ainter, art teacher and astro- 

 loger " (he might have added mechanician and pugilist!) was a remark- 



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