297 



As to the cause of motion in these organisms, which has been 

 considered voluntary, Dr. Burnett had no new hypothesis to 

 offer. Subjected to electricity and chemical reagents they were 

 found to be affected precisely as the Spermatozoa, which were 

 formerly considered as animals from possessing this power, an 

 opinion not now entertained by the best observers. Electrical 

 shocks, sufficiently strong to kill small animals, had no effect on 

 their movements, whereas chemical reagents on coming in con- 

 tact with their cell-structure soon caused them to cease. Re- 

 garded as plants, their occurrence is more readily explained in 

 the situations in which they are usually found, namely, in liquids 

 and infusions containing other Algse, especially the Torula; 

 upon the tartar of the teeth in company with various Algse, and 

 in the dejections from the alimentary canal. Finally, their 

 revival, after many years of apparent death, is more in accord- 

 ance with the view which regards them as plants rather than 

 animals. 



Prof. Wyman asked, if any member could give him any 

 information as to the alleged poisoning power of toads. It is a 

 common popular notion that they possess this power. He had 

 himself noticed that when, in an excursion in search of objects 

 of natural history, he had put frogs and toads together in his 

 box, on reaching home he had found the former dead and the 

 latter living. Could it be that the toads were the cause of their 

 death .^ He had also observed that during the breeding season, 

 in the spring, frogs and toads do not assemble in the same pond. 

 On the other hand, toads have been swallowed with impunity by 

 the insane. An instance had come under Prof. Wyman's notice 

 of a crazy man's swallowing a toad, which was ejected from the 

 stomach in half an hour without injury to the man or the reptile. 

 It is often noticed that dogs, after biting a toad, foam profusely 

 at the mouth, possibly from some irritating secretion being' poured 

 out on the surface of the skin. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson read an account, with a chemical 

 analysis of Tellurium ore, from the gold mine of White- 

 hall, Va. as follows : 



Early in May, 1848, I discovered an ore of Tellurium among 

 some specimens of native gold, given me by Mr. Knowles Tay- 



