298 Proceedings of Metropolitan Societies. | April, 
in a former paper he endeavoured to show that the coloured matter 
bears to the colourless or living germinal matter the same relation as 
formed material in other cases bears to germinal matter. It is formed 
from it, or rather results from changes occurring in it. If the living 
or eerminal matter die, slowly and natur ally (as when in the circula- 
ting fluid of the body), the red colouring matter is one of the 
substances resulting from its death. Numerous facts render it almost 
certain that these and other masses of germinal matter give rise to 
different substances, according to the conditions under which the 
particles cease to exhibit vital phenomena. The production of the 
material we know as fibrin is due to the death of minute particles of 
the living matter of the white and small colourless corpuscles, which 
takes place, under ordinary circumstances, when blood escapes from 
the vessels of the living body ; in fact it is one of the consequences 
of the first decomposition which the blood undergoes after death. 
Such decomposition may occur, under certain circumstances, in the 
body itself. The action of ammonia on the blood, after death, is 
considered by Dr. Beale to be such as to keep the fibrin once pro- 
duced in a state of diffusion throughout the mass; but he by no means 
considers its presence in the living blood as demonstrated, regarding, 
as he does, the theory he has propounded sufficient to account for the 
phenomena of coagulation without its interpolation. Neither is Dr. 
Beale at all inclined to assent to the views of Professor Lister, whose 
researches he, however, mentions with great deference. The theory 
propounded by that gentleman, that living substances, such as the 
walls of blood-vessels, &c., have not the power of separating fibrin 
from the blood, while external matters of an inanimate nature possess 
that property, is, he observes, unwarranted by our present knowledge, 
such an assertion as to the properties of living and inert bodies being 
as yet unsupported by conclusive proof. At the conclusion of his 
paper Dr. Beale remarked upon the unfairness displayed by those 
engaged in writing reviews upon the works of observers in this 
country—who, he says, are too wont to dwell upon the observations of 
foreign investigators to the neglect of those of their own countrymen. 
Dr. Lander, of the Royal Navy, has communicated a paper on 
Marine Diatomacee found at Hong-Kong, with descriptions of new 
species. The species described belong to the genus Cheetoceros—and 
are very abundant in the harbour of Hong-Kong. Several species are 
enumerated. 
Mr. D. E. Goddard has described a new form of mounting-table. 
It consists of a piece of brass 12 inches long and 3 inches broad and 
13th of an inch thick, a large space is punched out in the centre of the 
usual form of microscope slides. The table is supported by four legs, 
and a spirit-lamp can be placed beneath, thus enabling the operator 
conveniently to moderate the amount of heat used. The table is likely 
to be much employed by those who indulge in such accessory apparatus, 
though it cannot be said to be a necessary or even an important piece 
of mechanism. 
