Roxjal Society . 275 



knight; John Gillies, LL. D. ; James Glenicj esq.; sir Fre- 

 derick Morton Eden, hart. ; lord Henley ; Benjamin Hob- 

 house, esq. ; Joseph Jckyll, esq. ; Edward Inncs, M. D. ; 

 John Rennie, esq.; John Sylvesier, LL. E. 



And the officers were — the Right Honourable Sir Joseph 

 Banks, K.B. President ; William Marsden, esq. Treasurer ; 

 William Hyde Wollaston, M. D., and Humphry Davy, 

 esq. Secretaries, 



Dec. 10. The President in the chair. The minutes of the 

 proceedings of the anniversary, the amount of the receipts 

 and disbursements, and lists of members dead and ncv.- ones 

 elected during the last year, were laid before the Society; 

 after which a mathematical paper, by Mr. Woodhouse, on 

 the form of the teeth of wheel?, was read. In this paper 

 the author proposed to unite the method of cpicycloidal 

 curves, invented by De la Hire, and improved by Camus, 

 with the analytical method proposed by Euler, in order to 

 reduce them to general practice. 



Dec. 17. The President in the chair. The Croonian Lec- 

 ture, by Mr. Carlisle, on the nature and chemical qualities 

 of the muscles, and natural history of muscular motion, 

 was read. Mr. C. began by taking a physiological view of 

 the circulation of the blood, and of the influence of the nerves, 

 so far as they operate on the muscular fibre. He then no- 

 ticed the existence of an oxide of iron discovered in the red 

 globules of the blood, which he considered as materially in- 

 fluencing the muscular fibre, and the healthtul state of the 

 animal oeconomy ; and proceeded to relate the results of nu- 

 merous experiments on vegetable and animal substances, in 

 all of which he found an oxide of iron, as in pea.-, yolks of 

 eggs, bile, urine, 8cc. The yolks of eggs he discovered to 

 be entirely composed of a i'attv oil and an oxide ot iron ; 

 but his experiments on the nature of the muscular fibre are 

 not yet in a state to be laid before the Society. 



Dec. 24. The President in the chair. A paper, by Mr. 

 Smithson, on quadruple and binary compounds, particularly 

 the sulphurels, was read. The .author seemed to doubt the 

 propriety oF the distinction, or rather the existence, of qua- 

 druple compound^, believed that only two substances could 

 S '-2 enter 



