NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 



9 



the absorption of a larger quantity of oxygen being at times per-^ 

 mitted, death resulted ; and at other times, in an opposite state of 

 the gas in which none was absorbed, no harm resulted. 



Dr. H. C. Wood stated that he had known the administration of 

 nitrous oxide gas to a patient suffering with uterine colic to fail to 

 produce anaesthesia. 



Richard K. Betts was elected a member of the Department. 



Oct. 5 th, 1868. 

 Director, Wm. Pepper, M. D., in the Chair. 



Twenty-seven members present. 



Prop. Leidy directed attention to a specimen of a sponge which had been 

 for nianyj-ears in the Museum of the Academy, and had been presented by the 

 late Dr.R. E. Griffith, who obtained it in the' Ishmd of Santa Cruz, W. I. It 

 is especially interesting from its relationship with that most beautiful of all 

 known sponges, the Euplectella uspergillum^ and apparently also to that enig- 

 matic body the Hyalouema Sieboldii of Japan. Specimens of both these were 

 also exhibited. A beautiful one of the former, from the Philippines, pre- 

 sented to the Academy by Joseph Henry Craven. Several specimens of the 

 Hyalonema, presented by Drs. Ruschenberger and Sinclair, consist of a twisted 

 fasciculus or rope of long, coarse, translucent siliceous threads, partially invested 

 with a brown verrucose membrane or bark. When the first specimen was 

 presented to the Academy in 18G0, (Pr. A. N. S. 1860, 85,) Prof. Leidy, as 

 Curator, reported it as a part of a sponge with a parasitic polyp upon it. One 

 of the specimens may have some significance as to the relation of the rope ot 

 spicules and its polyp covering. It has attached two shark eggs and part of 

 the tendril-like cords of another. The tendrils clasp the i-ope and are also 

 partially invested with the polyp crust. In the complete condition, the 

 Hyalonevia fasciculus appears always to be associated at one end with a 

 sponge-mass. Originally described by Dr. R. E. Gray, the fasciculus was 

 viewed as the axis of a coral of which the verrucose bark formed part, the 

 warts constituting the polyps ; and he supposed the fasciculus to grow as a 

 parasite from the sponge, frequently seen in specimens attached to one of its 

 extremities. This still appears to be the view of Dr. Gray, as announced in 

 recent volumes of the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, etc. 



Dr. Bowerbank views the siliceous rope, with its warty investment and the 

 sponge mass at one end, altogether as the elements of a sponge. The warts 

 or polyps of Dr. Gray he regards as the oscules of the sponge. 



Schultze, in an elaborate memoir, (Die Hyalonemen) accompanied by beau- 

 tiful plates representing the complete Ibjalonema, as the result of his investi- 

 gations, determines the sponge-mass and projecting siliceous rope to be together 

 the elements of the sponge, and the warty investment of the rope to belong to 

 a polyp to which he gives the name of PohjtJioa fatua. In the crusts or indi- 

 vidual polyps he detected the arms filled with nettling cells. 



Brandt views the siliceous rope and its investment as a polyp, and the sponge 

 mass at one extremity as a parasite invading, ultimately to destroy the polyp. 



Lastly, among the discordant views, Ehrenburg looks upon the siliceous 

 rope as an "artificial product of Japanese industry." 



Prof. L. continued, I shall not discuss this extraordinary difference of 

 opinions among experts, but must confess that I view most favorably the theory 

 that the sponge-mass and the siliceous rope together constitute the sponge 

 Hiialoncmd, while the warty crust of the rope constitutes a parasitic compound 

 polyp, the Polythoa fatua of Schultze. 



The sponge from Santa Cruz, in its body and projecting fasciculi of siliceous 

 threads, reminds one of the Hyalonema sponge with its siliceous rope, but the 

 structure of the threads of the former more nearly resembles those of the 



