212 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
if the contents of the cells had separated from the cell-wall, and 
become aggregated round the centre like a nucleus. When these 
corpuscles were treated with magenta, the central portion was 
either not coloured at all or only faintly so, whereas the circum- 
ferential portions became deeply tinted. By treating fresh blood 
with an excess of a solution of carbolic acid, this appearance could 
be produced at will. In the blood-corpuscles of the fowl a similar 
effect was produced by the carbolic-acid solution: the cell-contents 
appeared to detach themselves from the cell-wall and to collect 
round the nucleus. The appearances presented strongly suggested 
the idea that the cell-envelope of the blood-disc was a double mem- 
brane; that the inner separated under certain circumstances from 
the outer membrane and shrank in toward the centre. Dr. Hensen, 
of Kiel,* seems to have convinced himself that such is the case in 
the blood-disc of the frog, and he compares the inner membrane to 
the primordial utricle of the vegetable cell. Of the prolongations 
described by Dr. Hensen as stretching rapidly between the shrunk 
inner membrane and the outer one, Dr. Roberts saw nothing. If 
the said view of the structure of the blood-cells were substantiated, 
it would greatly facilitate the explanation of the appearances pro- 
duced in these cells by magenta and tannin. 
Mr. Charles O’Neill, F.C.S., exhibited a mounted fibre of Orleans 
cotton, torn by a gradually increasing weight suspended to its ex- 
tremity. It had sustained a weight (gradually increased) of 162 
grains for many minutes. Mr. O'Neill stated that there were 143 
such fibres in ‘01 grain of cotton, each fibre therefore weighing 
less than the ten thousandth part of a grain. The strongest fibres 
were capable of supporting more than two million times their own 
weight. He is engaged in making experiments upon the tensile 
strengths of various fibres by a special apparatus, but they are not 
yet completed. 
Mr. Brothers exhibited a number of fresh-water insects, larva, &e. 
Mr. Parry exhibited the transverse section of a fossil palm, from 
the Island of Antigua. 
The following gentlemen were elected officers of the Society for 
the ensuing year:—President: Edward William Binney, F.R.S., 
F.G.8. -Vice-Presidents: James Prescott Joule, LL.D., F.R.S., 
F.C.S., &c.; Robert Angus Smith, Ph.D., F.R.S., F.C.S. ; Joseph 
Chesborough Dyer; Edward Schunek, Ph.D., F.R.S., F.C.S. 
Secretaries: Henry Enfield Roscoe, B.A., Ph.D., F.C.S.; Joseph 
Baxendell, F.R.A.S, Treasurer: Robert Worthington, F.R.A.S. 
Librarian, Charles Fredrik Ekman. 
Of the Council: Rev. William Gaskell, M.A.; Frederick Crace 
Calvert, Ph.D., F.R.S., &c.; Peter Spence, F.C.S.; George Mosley; 
Alfred Fryer; George Venables Vernon, F.R.A.S. 
* © Siebold und Kolliker’s Zeitschrift’ for 1861, p. 263. 
