DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 447 



The cells seemed to form a single file, mode of branching not 

 evident. The probably inner and older portions of the mass 

 appeared colourless, whilst the seemingly more vigorous portions 

 showed a brown colour; the sheath very thick. This curious 

 form (with the rest) was found on rocks in Arran. 



Gosmarium acantliophorum, Nordstedt, exhibited. — Mr. Archer 

 showed an example from Professor Nordstedt's hands of his so- 

 called Gosmarium acantliopliornm. Why he refers tliis form to 

 Cosmarium at all, and not to Xanthidium, Mr. Archer could not 

 see, as it seemed undoubtedly to come under the latter genus, 

 just as decidedly as do Xanthidium aculeatum, X. Nordstedtii, or 

 the common X. antilopceum. Mr. Archer showed in illustration 

 Xanthidium aculeatum side by side. 



Exhibit io7i of Hehninthosporiu^n echinulatum, Berk. — 

 Mr. Greenwood Pirn showed Helminthosporium echinulatum, 

 Berk., which occurred in considerable abundance on the frost- 

 killed, though not fallen, leaves of Eucalyptus globulus in his 

 garden at Monkstown. It is a very distinct form, being the only 

 one of the genus in which echinulate spores are found. It seems 

 to be rare, as Cooke quotes but one authority, viz. Eev. M. 

 J. Berkeley, in ' G-ardeners' Chronicle,' 1870, who found it on 

 carnation-leaves — a locus for numerous microscopic fungi. The 

 plant shown accorded exactly with Berkeley's figure. 



Exhibition of Section of Testicle — Mr. B. Wills Eichardson 

 exhibited two complete sections of the testicle, with portion of 

 the epididymis of a boy nine years of age. They were made with 

 the freezing microtome and were cut from before backwards 

 parallel to the side of the organ, were unbroken and exceedingly 

 thin. One was an anilin blue staining, the other a picro- 

 scarlet made with picric acid and a scarlet obtained from 

 Messrs. Brooke, Simpson, and Spiller, of London. This section 

 was first stained witb an alcoholic solution of the picric acid, 

 then washed in rectified spirit and subsequently coloured with an 

 alcoholic solution of the scarlet. Half an hour or so sufficed for 

 the process. When sufficiently stained with the scarlet, the 

 section was again washed in alcohol and finally mounted in 

 dammar solution. 



Section of Quartzite from Nephin. — Professor Hull, F.E.S., 

 exhibited a thin section of the micaceous quartzite of Nephin. 

 It is of a light grey colour, exhibiting slight traces of foliation, 

 and containing numerous minute flakes of mica. The plane of 

 the section is at an angle of about 25° to that of foliation. With 

 2-inch objective the mass appears to consist of colourless, trans- 

 lucent quartz, with numerous elongated crystals of mica, lying in 

 nearly parallel directions. With the polariscope the silica 

 resolves itself into distinct granules, irregular in form and 

 polarising vividly, particularly with crossed Nicols, when it shows 

 a, variegated field of purple, blue, yellow, pink, light yellow, 

 light blue colours. The mica also polarises and shows the usual 

 deep scars of the planes of cleavage. With i objective minute cells 



