394 Royal Society. 
cluding the definite proportions of the integral atoms of alf 
the known compounds. Bergman, Kirwan, and Rytter 
have all attempted to give tables of the acids; but the state 
of chemical knowledge had not then attained sufficient 
maturity to make them permanently useful. Dr. W. has 
availed himself of later discoveries, and formed a table on # 
new and more useful construction to be used like the 
sliding-rule, and designed to abridge the labour of the analy- 
tical chemist, assist the memory, and present a correct 
summary view of our knowledge of chemical bodies. The 
only substance which he found it necessary to analyse was 
oxalic acid, in order to be able to state its component parts 
correctly, all preceding ,analyses being defective. The 
Doctor also added some directions necessary to those who 
are not familiar with the use of that excellent instrument 
the sliding rule. 
Thursday, Nov. 11. The President in the chair. The 
Croonian Lecture on Muscular Motion, by Mr. Brodie, was 
read. Mr. B. began with a general review of the doc- 
trine established by Hiller, and improved by subsequent 
physiologists, that mnscular motion is dependent on ner- 
vous excitement, and that such excitement is derived from 
the brain. He examined the recent opinions of M.de 
Gallois; that muscular motion is occasioned by the spinal 
marrow, and the stimulus of the blood on the heart; the 
result of four or five experiments was stated, all of which 
tended to prove that the blood does not occasion the con- 
tractions and pulsations of the heart, that the circulation 
can be continued by artificial respiration after decapitation, 
but that it instantly stops when the heart is prevented from 
communicating with the spinal marrow. Nevertheless the 
author appeared to ascribe the principal source of muscular 
irritability to the brain, and the nerves ramifying from it. 
In cold-blooded animals, particularly the frog, he found 
that the pulsations of its heart continucd above an hour 
after being separated from the spinal marrow, and that the 
irsitability remained more than a day. Mr. B. has made 
_experiments on no other cold-blooded animals. 
Nov. 18. Major Kater communicated to the Society 
the result of three more experiments made on the compara- 
tive powers of the Cassegrainian and Gregorian Telescopes, 
by which it appears that the superiority of the former over 
the latter is im the proportion of 234 to 10. The Casse- 
grainian telescope was made by Mr..Crickmore. 
Dr. Thomas Thomson furnished a paper, containing 
an Account of some Experiments which he made on an Ore 
of 
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