8 4 



Dr. Hume exhibited a spur of great size, found at 

 Lancaster, supposed to belong to the period of the civil 

 wars. He also read some remarks by Mr. Albert Way, 

 Director of the Society of Antiquaries, on the Antiquities 

 recently found at Hoylake, and described by Dr. Hume in 

 a paper read during the last Session before this Society. 



Dr. Inman read a Paper " On voluntary and involun- 

 tary motions, with an account of the organs by which they 

 are produced." 



He commenced by observing, that there were many 

 motions in the animal and vegetable world 'hitherto 

 unaccounted for, and of which no satisfactory explanation 

 had been given. The circulation in plants, (whether in 

 closed cells, as in the Valisneria and Chara, or in con- 

 tinuous vessels as in the Euphorbiacere, and other plants 

 with a milky juice,) though well known for a long time, 

 was imperfectly understood. That in the Valisneria con- 

 sisted of a regular march of the green globules of the 

 Chlorophyll, round each individual cell, in a plane corres- 

 ponding to the breadth of the leaf; their course was not 

 uniform, being in one part from right to left, in another 

 from left to right, and occasionally it might be seen that 

 they cut across the cell and changed at once their direction. 

 The rate of motion varied in different parts of the leaf, and 

 even in the same cell, being in some places five inches, in 

 others only . 85 of an inch per hour. There were few 

 remarks he could offer as to the cause of the circulation. 

 It had been ascertained that galvanism had no influence 

 upon it, and it was well known that it continued a long 

 time (about ten days) after the separation of the cells from 

 the parent plant. He had seen it more active in the dead 

 termination of a leaf, where the Chlorophyll granules had 

 become brown, than in the lower part of the same leaf 

 where there was full evidence of health and vigour. A 



