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 PKOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



PiOYAL Microscopical Society. 



King's College, November 5th, 1 873. 



Cliarles Brooke, Esq., F.E.S., President, in the chair. 



Tlie minutes of the preceding meeting were read and confirmed. 



A list of donations to the Society received since October 1st was 

 read, and the thanks of the meeting were voted to the donors. 



The Secretary called the attention of the meeting to three photo- 

 graphs by Dr. J. J. Woodward, of the Army Medical Department, 

 Washington, and which had been brought there that evening by Dr. 

 Lawson. Two of them were of Navicula lyra, and the third was of 

 Aviphipleura pellucida, raagm&ed to 1380 diameters withaTolles' xV*^^ 

 immersion objective. 



The Secretary read a j)aper, by the Eev. W. H. Dallinger, " Ou 

 some further Researches into the Life History of the Monads," in which 

 the author minutely detailed a number of interesting observations 

 conducted by himself and Dr. Drysdale. The paper, which was in 

 continuation of one already published in the Journal, was accompanied 

 by some very fine drawings as illustrations. It will be found printed 

 in extenso at p. 245. 



A vote of thanks was unanimously passed to Mr. Dallinger for his 

 communication. 



Mr. H. J. Slack thought that this paper was very remarkable on 

 account of the extreme minuteness of the bodies which it described ; 

 it was also of much importance as bearing upon what was injudiciously 

 called " spontaneous generation"; for if so high a power as a -^^ inch 

 was required to see the granules or germs from which the monads 

 were developed, not only many of their changes, but their existence, 

 would be overlooked by those observers who had worked only with 

 lower powers. It would also be easily seen that a person using a 

 lower power might assert that a fluid contained no germs whatever, 

 whereas in reality it might contain millions. This was, he believed, 

 the first time that observations had been recorded as to anything like 

 a true sexual process in such excessively minute bodies. The paper 

 was also of much interest as showing how little stress must be placed 

 on external form in determining species, for here were many quite 

 dissimilar forms, such as round, oval, and triangular, yet all belonged 

 to the same species in different stages. They were so unlike each 

 other that anyone might have called them different species, and have 

 proceeded forthwith to give to each of them a terrible long-tailed. 

 Greek name. 



The President thought the question of so-called spontaneous 

 generation was so important that whatever threw any additional light 

 upon the subject could hardly fail to be of great interest. 



Mr. Alfred Sanders read an interesting paper " On the Art of 

 Photographing Microscopic Objects," in which he showed that the 

 costly apparatus and extensive arrangements frequently regarded as 

 essential to success might readily be dispensed with, and the most 



