PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES, 2138 
April 20th, 1863. 
Professor WILLIAMSON, F.R.S., President of the Section, in the 
Chair. 
Mr, Charles O’Neill, F.C.S.,and Mr. John Shae Perring, M.Inst. 
C.E., were elected members of the section. 
Mr. John Slagg, jun., and Mr. H. A. Hurst, were elected 
auditors of the treasurer’s accounts. 
Mr. Alfred Fryer presented for distribution amongst the members 
a number of impressions of an engraving of the Acarus sacchari 
found in raw grocery sugar, from Mauritius. 
Mr. Brothers stated that he had made some observations upon 
the circulation in plants, and he found that a degree of heat which 
would cause free circulation in Vallisneria entirely destroyed it in 
Chara vulgata. Mr. Brothers also described the appearances pre- 
sented by the cilia of Melicerta ringens, which he had the unusual 
opportunity of observing whilst the animal was outside its case in 
a dying state. As the motion of the cilia gradually became fitful 
and then ceased, it was apparent that tle cilia of the inner row are 
much longer than those of the outer row, over which the former 
appear to bend and to crush off whatever may be adhering to them 
into the channel between the two rows. Thus are produced the 
wavy lines and apparent onward progression of the cilia, which 
render this, under suitable illumination, so brilliant and interesting 
a microscopical object. 
Mr. Charles O’ Neill, F.C.S., made a communication ‘‘ Upon the 
Appearances of Cotton Fibre during Solution and Disintegration.” 
These experiments referred to the application of Schweizer’s sol- 
vent. Two strengths were used; the weaker contained oxide of 
copper, equal to 4°3 grs. metal per 1000 and 47 grs. dry ammonia; 
the stronger contained 15°4 grs. metal and 77 grs. dry ammonia 
per 1000. The latter is about the most concentrated solution which 
can be made. Referring to the researches of Payen, Fresny, Peligot, 
Schlossberger, and others, who have employed this solvent, the 
author said the only experimenter who seemed to have worked in the 
same direction with himself, and that apparently only to a small’ 
extent, was Dr. Cramer, whose paper he had only been able to see 
in a translation appended as a note to a memoir of M. Payen, in 
‘Comptes Rendus,’ p. 319, vol. xlviii. 
Mr, O'Neill considers that cotton exhibits, under the action of 
this solvent, (1) an external membrane distinct from the true cell- 
wall or cellulose matter; (2) spiral vessels situated either in or 
outside the external membrane; (3) the true cell-wall or cellulose ; 
and (4) an inner medullary matter. The external membrane is 
insoluble in the solvent, and may be obtained in short, hollow 
cylinders by first acting upon the cotton with the dilute solvent, so 
as to gradually remove the cellulose, and then dissolve all soluble 
