526 Meeting of the British Association. [ Oct., - 
We regret that we cannot do more than mention the Reports 
by Mr. E. Whymper “On the Fossil Plants of Greenland,” and 
by Mr. W. 8S. Mitchell “On the Leaf-beds of the Lower Bagshot 
Series of Hampshire.” 
Brotogy. Section (D.) 
This section formed itself into a department of Zoology and 
Botany and a department of Anatomy and Physiology, as on pre- 
vious occasions. The Rey. M. J. Berkeley, the distinguished writer 
on Cryptogamic Botany, was President of the Section, and sat in 
the department of Zoology and Botany, where also the other 
botanists, among them Dr. Hooker, Professors Balfour, Dickson, 
Lawson, and Perceval Wright, and the general zoologists congre- 
gated. Mr. Flower, F.R.S., of the Royal College of Surgeons’ 
Museum, presided in the other department, and was supported by 
many anatomists and doctors ; amongst them were Professor Rolles- 
ton, Dr. Hughes Bennett, Dr. Benjamin Richardson, Professor 
Humphrey, Professor Huxley, and also the distinguished continental 
physiologists, Heynsius, Paul Broca, and Béhier. 
Mr. Berkeley opened the proceedings of the Section with a 
remarkably interesting address. He directed his remarks, first, 
to recent researches and speculations in Cryptogamic Botany, on 
which he is so well qualified to speak judicially, and then to 
the theory of Pangenesis. He alluded to the observations of 
De Bary and Cienkowski on organisms which appear to be inter- 
mediate between plants and animals, such as Myxomycetes and 
some forms of Monads, and confirmed the deductions which they 
drew from their observations. He then noticed Hallier’s views as 
to the fungoid origin of certain diseases. At first Hallier had 
merely observed fungi in Asiatic cholera, but recently he had 
stated that in typhus, typhoid, and measles (in the blood), in 
variola and in vaccinia (in the exanthemes), he had found certain 
minute organisms which he termed Micrococci, which, when culti- 
vated in the way known to students of moulds, &., produced each 
a constant and characteristic fungus. He did not consider that 
Hallier had proved his case; his experiments were far from con- 
clusive, and he drew conclusions hastily. It was quite possible 
that certam fungi might occur constantly in substances of -a 
certain chemical and molecular constitution, but this might be a 
case of effect instead of cause. The matter had been taken up 
by De Bary and our own Army Medical Department, some of 
whose able officers had been commissioned to investigate the ques- 
tion fully. 
The recent researches of Mr. Herbert Spencer had shown, by 
the introduction of coloured fluids into the tissues of the living 
