294 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



than the photograph in the ' English Mechanic.' Both the specimens 

 of ruling were very beautiful, but the one on the slide was much more 

 elaborate than that in the ornamental circular frame. 



The Secretary also stated that the Council proposed, if they could 

 obtain the use of the room in which the Society's meetings were held, 

 to have another Scientific meeting on the Wednesday of the third week 

 in January next, the meeting to consist of the Fellows and a few 

 visitors. The Council hojied that every Fellow would endeavour to 

 bring all that was new or fine in reference to recent discoveries. The 

 precise date of the meeting would be fixed as early as possible, and then 

 commimicated to the Fellows by circular without delay. He believed 

 it most probable that the room could be used on the day already men- 

 tioned. 



Dr. Braithwaite then read a paper " On the Structure of Bog 

 Mosses." 



In answer to a question from the President, Dr. Braithwaite said 

 that the leaves whose characters he had been describing were not all 

 constant throughout the species, but that they do vary on the plant. 



The Secretary announced that three very fine photographs of 

 Degeeria domestica had been received from Dr. Woodward of the U. S. 

 Army Medical Department, accompanied by a short descriptive paper. 



Mr. Slack said he had hoped Mr. Wenham would have been pre- 

 sent that evening, in order that he might have given an explanation of 

 his method of illumination to which Dr. Woodward had alluded. 

 He (Mr. Slack) believed that the action of that mode of illiunination 

 depended upon the fact that the object must rest upon the bottom of 

 the glass slide, and that the covering glass was made to act as a mirror 

 throwing light down upon it ; consequently there would be opaque 

 illumination just as the object was opaque. But if the object was 

 partially transj)arent a portion of light would go through it. Some 

 of the light might enter the object and reach the eye by internal re- 

 flexions, or refractions. He thought Mr. Brooke would be able to 

 confirm this exj)lanation. 



Mr. Brooke said he believed Mr. Slack had correctly described the 

 effects that would be produced by Mr. Wenham's mode of illumina- 

 tion. The explanation of it was, that the objects were partially seen 

 by reflected light thrown down upon them from the covering glass, and 

 they were therefore so far seen opaquely : they might also transmit 

 certain rays that came less obliquely, and they would thus be rendered 

 visible both by the transmitted and the reflected rays. 



Mr. Slack said the jihotographs showed characters very near to 

 those described by Dr. Pigott, and similar to the sketches he had 

 published in the ' Student.' 



Mr. W. Saville Kent then read a paper " On Professor James 

 Clark's Flagellate Infusoria, with description of New Species." 



Mr. Kent, replying to the inquiries of the President, said that he 

 considered the jiresence of the flagellum seen in Monas, would place 

 it in a higher class of Protozoa than the Rhizopoda ; that some of the 

 forms he had described had a kind of chitinous sheath, as in Coiliurnia; 

 that the bell-shaped " collar " shown in his (Mr. Kent's) diagrams was 



