296 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 
Among the many meritorious papers of less general interest may 
be mentioned the following :—“On the Middle and Upper Lias of 
the Dorsetshire Coast,’ by Mr. H. C. H. Day; “ On some Ichthyolites 
from New South Wales,” by Sir P. G. Egerton; “ On a Hyzena-den 
at Wookey Hole,” by Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins; “On the Original Na- 
ture and Subsequent Alteration of Mica-schist,” by Mr. H. C. Sorby ; 
“On a new Species of Dendrerpeton and on the Dermal Coverings of 
certain Carboniferous Reptiles,” by Dr. J. W. Dawson; “On the 
Upper Old Red Sandstone and Upper Devonian Rocks,” by Mr. J. W. 
Salter ; “On the Older Rocks of Bavaria and Bohemia,” by Sir R. I. 
Murchison ; “On the Skiddaw State Series,” by Professor R. Hark- 
ness; with many others. 
Judging from the number of new Fellows elected during the past 
year, the society must be in a very flourishing condition. We notice 
the following well-known names among those of the newly-elected 
Fellows :—I] Commendatore Devincenzi, Minister of Agriculture and 
Commerce of the Kingdom of Italy; Nicholas Kendall, Esq., M.P., 
Member of the Royal Commission of Mines; the Rev. Charles 
Kingsley, M.A., Professor: of Modern History in the University of 
Cambridge; James Fergusson, Esq., F.R.S., author of the History of 
Modern Architecture, &c.; J. F. Iselin, Esq., M.A., Inspector of 
Science-Schools; E. J. Routh, Esq., M.A., Fellow of St. John’s Col- 
lege, Cambridge. 
A Class of foreign correspondents—to include not more than forty 
foreign geologists—has lately been instituted, and the lists of those 
already elected include the names of very many foreigners of note. 
THE MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 
Dr. Lionet Bratz has, during the past quarter, read before the 
members of this Society a paper of such great interest to physiolo- 
gists, that we feel justified in devoting the chief portion of our 
limited space to an account of its leading features. It will no doubt 
be reported in detail in the ‘Quarterly Journal, devoted to the 
progress of Microscopical Science. 
In continuation of his reports on this and kindred subjects, Dr. 
Beale communicated a very valuable paper on the Germinal Matter of 
the Blood, with remarks upon the formation of Fibrin. The author 
described all germinal matter as being soft or semifluid, and always of 
the spherical form, unless otherwise distorted by external agency. 
White blood-corpuscles, and the numerous small colourless corpuscles 
which Dr. Beale described in a former paper to the Society, consisting 
principally of living or germinal matter, are of a spherical form. 
In the blood of man and the higher animals, and we may add in the 
fluids of nearly all Invertebrata also, there exist a great number of 
these minute granular particles, of the same general appearance and 
refractive power as the matter of which the white blood-corpuscles are 
