Royal Society. 489 
(as asserted by Kotzebue, Beechey and others) ; and, further, that 
we have corresponding nightly periods of high water. 
“It is evident that the time of high water at full and change may 
be assumed as that of noon, because we have sufficiently decided 
changes of level to fix the approximate period of high water. 
“It does not appear by these Registers, that any higher levels 
result from the rollers sent in by the strong sea breezes (as asserted 
by several writers), but rather the contrary, the highest levels being 
indicated during the night, when the land breezes prevailed. 
«‘T have great satisfaction in presenting you with these facts, and 
trust that they may induce others to follow up the same experiments, 
so as, eventually, to obtain the variations which other seasons may 
produce. 
“TJ am, Sir, your most obedient servant, 
“Epwarpb BELcHER, Captain.” 
“ Captain Beaufort, R.N., F.R.S., Hydrographer.” 
2. “On Fissiparous Generation :” by Martin Barry, M.D., F.R.S. 
L. and Ed. 
The author observes that the blood-corpuscle and the germinal 
vesicle resemble one another* in the circumstance of an orifice ex- 
isting in the centre of the parietal nucleus of both. He pursues the 
analogy still farther, conceiving that as a substance of some sort is 
introduced into the ovum through its orifice, which the author 
terms the point of fecundation, so the corpuscles of the blood may 
undergo a sort of fecundation through their corresponding orifice ; 
and also that the blood-corpuscle, like the germinal vesicle, is pro- 
pagated by self-division of its nucleus; a mode of propagation 
which he believes to be common to cells in general. The nucleus 
of the germinal vesicle, or original parent cell of the ovum, gives 
origin, by self-division, to two young persistent cells, endowed with 
qualities resulting from the fecundation of the parent cell; these 
two cells being formed by assimilation, out of a great number of 
minuter cells which had been previously formed. This account of 
the process, which takes place in the reproduction of the entire or- 
ganism, explains, according to Dr. Barry, the mysterious reappear- 
ance of the qualities of both parents in the offspring. 
Certain nuclei, which the author has delineated in former papers 
as being contained within and among the fibres of the tissues, he 
conceives to be, in like manner, centres of assimilation, from obser- 
ving that they present the same sort of orifice, that they are repro- 
duced by self-division, and that they are derived from the original 
cells of development ; that is, from the nuclei of the corpuscles of 
the blood. He considers that assimilation of the substance intro- 
duced into the parietal nucleus of the cell is part of the process 
which propagates the cell; that the mode of reproduction of cells 
is essentially fissiparous, and that the process of assimilation pre- 
pares them for being cleft. 
A pellucid point is described by the author as being “ contained 
* Dr. Barry requests us to add, that the words “in certain states’ are 
wanted here.—Epir. 
