L 136 ] 



recovered the shock its system had suiFered. He believed the field 

 of research he had indicated was a wide and an interesting one, but 

 if it should not prove so, the necessity which it would impose on its 

 votaries of watching individual plant-lives with care and accuracy 

 would at least increase their botanical knowledge, however great it 

 might pi-eviously have been, and would excuse his laying before 

 them so superficial a paper. 



The President, (Mr. Alderman Cox) proposed a vote of thanks 

 to Mr. Lomax for his interesting paper, and enquired whether he 

 could assign any reason why, when a new vine shoot was removed, 

 no sap flowed, whereas, if a previous year's shoot were removed, the 

 sap flowed copiously ? 



Mr. Lomax replied that such a question revived the old difl"er- 

 ence as to whether sap really did flow. He thought that a copious 

 discharge of sap was more often met with when the tree produced 

 a succulent fruit than when otherwise. 



Mr. "WoNFOR commented upon the mysteiious fact that, whilst 

 a plant might live, ordinarily, only fifty years, cuttings made from 

 it, and planted, also lived the full alloted time, quite outliving the 

 parent stock; so that thousands of cuttings might now be alive, 

 the parents of which died years ago. 



Previous to the reading of the paper, Mr. F. E. Sawyer briefly 

 drew attention to some solar halus which he had recently witnessed, 

 and illustrated his observations by diagrams. 



June 24th. 

 MICROSCOPICAL MEETING.— MR. T. W. WONFOR 

 ON " HAIR, WOOL, FUR, x\ND SILK, MICRO- 

 SCOPICALLY CONSIDERED." 



One of the first objects the possessor of a microscope subjected 

 to scrutiny was a human hair; and scores of times, after exhibiting 

 to some non-microscopical friend some very choice objects, the 

 question had been asked, " But how does a hair look under the 

 microscope ? " and invariably the querist was disappointed when a 

 hair was exhibited at bis or her request. 



