184 PROCEEDmCxS OF SOCIETIES. 



many delicate investigations. I am not, however, aware that any 

 traces of the rev. doctor's microscopical labours exist in print. Mr. 

 Gibbons has also steadily endeavoured to popularize the microscope by 

 lecturing and teaching thereon. He has likewise worked at micro- 

 photography. And under this head I must not omit naming that able 

 photographer, Mr. Noone, of the photographic branch in the Crown 

 Lands Department, And now I come to that most skilful and veteran 

 microscopist, Thomas Shearman Ralph. That gentleman, in the year 

 1857, exhibited at a conversazione of the Eoyal Society some fossil 

 diatoms found by him in a railway embankment on the South Yarra 

 swamp, and at a subsequent meeting of that body a jiaper on these 

 Diatomacete was read by the late Dr. Coates. The princii)al species 

 shown was one closely resembling Eupodiscus JRalfsii, named after 

 Ralfs, the author of British Dosmidiaceas. There were also some 

 Campolydisci among upwards of fifty different species of various 

 genera not then properly determined. From this embankment many 

 microscopists have been sujDplied in England and elsewhere. Subse- 

 quently, in December, 1865, Mr. Ealph, through the Medical Society 

 of Victoria, made known his microscopical observations and experi- 

 ments on the effects of prussic acid on the animal economy, showing 

 that the iron in the blood is acted upon by the exhibition of prussic 

 acid, and that prussian blue is formed and starchy bodies produced. 

 A paper by Professor Halford on the action of magenta on the blood, 

 published in 1866, stimulated Mr. Ealj^h to make further experiments 

 as to the effects of various chemical agents on that substance, and he 

 soon after gave the results of his observations on the effect of magenta, 

 cupriate of aromonia, &c., and maintained that the red corpuscles of 

 the blood are spherical and not discoid while circulating. In June, 

 1869, Professor Halford having read at the Medical Society a paper 

 on the condition of the blood after death from snake bite, in w hich he 

 pointed out the altered condition of the corpuscles, Mr. Ealjih 

 foUow^ed up the same subject in December of that year. In 1871 Mr. 

 Ealph produced further observations and experiments with the 

 microscope on the chemical effects of chloral-hydrate, chloroform, 

 prussic acid, and other agents in the blood ; and in August, 1872, he 

 read a paper at the Medical Society on the existence of minute bodies 

 in the blood other than the white and red corpuscles. This had 

 especial reference to scarlatinal poisoning of the blood. Professor 

 Halford, in addition to his labours already mentioned, has proved still 

 further his experimental ability and assiduity in research by the 

 production of a paper entitled " Experiments and Observations on 

 Absorption," in which the microscope played a prominent part. 

 With the mention of Mr. Watts, who contributed to the Transactions of 

 the Philosophical Institute of Victoria a list of some Victorian Des- 

 midiacefe, and drew attention to certain fossil polyzoa observed by 

 him ; also of the Eev. Julian E. Tenison Woods, who, in a paper read 

 in Melbourne, described some fossil jiolyzoa found at Mount Gambier ; 

 and of Mr. Maplestone, who has recently made some careful notes on 

 Victorian moUusca and their palates, which M'ere published in the 

 Transactions of the Eoyal Microscopical Society of London in 1872. 



