were united at the base of the brain, and thus the whole of the nervous 

 system was placed in direct connection and communion with the seat 

 of the intellectual and mental powers. 



At the President's suggestion, Dr. Hallifax consented to 

 continue the subject at the next ordinary meeting. 



November 25TH. 



MICROSCOPICAL MEETING.— MR. T. W. WONFOR ON 

 " POLYCYSTINA." 



.\lmost every microscopist possessed a slide or slides marked 

 " Barbadoes Earth," or " Polycystina," and many only regarded them 

 as beautiful and exquisite objects, without, possibly, considering what 

 they were or what the nature of the organism, whether animal or 

 vegetable, which originated these beautiful crystal-like forms of almost 

 every conceivable shape. 



If we turned to the manuals on the microscope, we found that 

 they were the minute siliceous shells of a class of animals, whose living 

 part or substance consisted of a brownish coloured " sarcode," some- 

 what resembling that met with in the protean animal, the amoeba, 

 " a little particle," as it had been said, " of apparently homogeneous 

 jelly, changing itself into a greater variety of forms than the fabled 

 Proteus, laying hold of its food without members, swallowing it without 

 a mouth, digesting it without a stomach, appropriating its nutritious 

 material without absorbent vessels or a circulating system, feeling (if 

 it has any power to do soj .vithout nerves ; and not only this, but in 

 many instances forming shelly coverings of a symmetry and complexity 

 not surpassed by those of any testaceous animals." 



That was actually what the Polycystina accomplished, being mere 

 lumps of sarcode. They spun, or wove, or, at least, formed for them- 

 selves coverings resembling the most costly and delicate filigree-work, 

 rivalling in beauty Chinese carvings in ivory, or ancient Peruvian or 

 modern Indian or Maltese silver filigree, out of a substance less work- 

 able or ductile, but infinitely more beautifu\ than ivory or silver — 



