82 NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 



wave-lengtlis can be read off" with ease in every part. The compari- 

 son prism is placed at right angles to the line of the slit, and enables 

 both spectra to be focussed sharjily at one and the same time. 



Mr. Hilger, by whom it is made, calls it " the Miniature Micro- 

 spectroscoi)e." 



The Structure of Blood-vessels. — Eanvier* has described peculiar 

 spindle-shaped extensions in the blood-vessels of the red muscles of 

 rabbits — a kind of small aneurism. They are found in the capillaries, 

 esj^ecially where they merge into each other, and in small veins. 

 These extensions, according to Eanvier, are the reservoirs for blood, 

 from which the muscles at the moment of contraction draw oxygen. 



These extensions of the blood-vessels are not only found in red 

 muscle, but also in other contractile tissues. Professor P. Peremeschko 

 says f that he has found them finely developed in the Lig. nuchas of 

 dogs and cats. They are situated chiefly in the capillaries, but also 

 in small arteries and veins. Their number is much more considerable 

 here than in muscle ; they are often placed in one and the same 

 vessel in rows alongside of each other, so that the injected vessel 

 assumes the form of a string of jiearls. Their shape is sometimes 

 spindle-like, sometimes oval, sometimes quite round. In young 

 animals their length and thickness and number are less than in full- 

 grown animals. In embryos during the first half of gestation they 

 are entirely wanting, and appear only at the end of that pei'iod in the 

 form of scarcely recognizable thickening of the vessels. 



Borings of a Sponge in Marble. — Some fragments of white 

 Italian marble were recently presented to the Peabody Museum of 

 Yale College, U.S. The marble was part of a cargo wrecked off" Long 

 Island in 1871, and taken up in 1878. The exposed portions of tlie 

 slabs were thoroughly penetrated to the depth of one to two inches 

 by the crooked and irregular borings or galleries of tlie sponge Cliona 

 sulphurea, Verrill, so as to reduce it to a complete honeycomb, readily 

 crumbling in the fingers. Beyond the borings the marble was per- 

 fectly sound and unaltered. The rapid destruction of the shells of 

 oysters, &c., by the boring of this sponge has, Mr. Verrill says,| been 

 long familiar to him, but of its efiects upon marble or limestone he 

 has not before seen examples ; for calcareous rocks do not occur 

 along the portion of the American coast which it inhabits. Its ability 

 to rajDidly destroy such rocks might have a practical bearing in case 

 of submarine structures of limestone or other similar materials. 



Alcoholic Fermentation. — M. Pasteur has carried out his inten- 

 tion of making a critical examination of the MSS. of the late Claude 

 Bernard.§ which M. Berthelot stated contained a refutation of M. 

 Pasteur's theories. The result of this examination is published in 

 No. 22 of the last volume of the ' Comj)tes Eendus,' || where it occuj)ies 



* '.Arch, de Physiol.,' 1874, t. 1. 



t ' Zoologischer Anzeiger,' vol. i. p. 200. 



% 'Am. Jour, of Sci. and Arts,' vol. xvi. p. 406. 



§ See vol. i. p. 271. 



II ' Comiites Rendus,' vol. Ixxxvii. p. 813. 



