EXTRACTS AND ABSTRACTS FROM FOREIGN JOURNALS. 93 



dren than in priraiparae. They are not all spherical, the majority are 

 flat. Their diameter is at most from -^^ * TTRF f a ^ me > some are 

 found measuring ^ in length, and -Jj in breadth. They consist of 

 small clear globules of fatty matter, which are connected together by a 

 firm cement, which is unalterable by either ammonia or concentrated 

 acetic acid, or by boiling. When the milk is left at rest, these globules 

 collect on its surface ; and when they exist in considerable numbers, 

 render it unfit for making butter. The author believes that they are 

 not, like the preceding globules, formed by the action of the air, but 

 that they are produced by the secreting surface of the gland-ducts, and 

 are analogous to the mucous-cells which are cast off from the surfaces 

 of many mucous membranes, and to which they are in many respecfs 

 similar. HeftlH.p. 258, 1840, Transt. in Brit. 8r For.Med.Rev. 1841. 



[From Guerin's Revue Zoologique.~\ 



Dujardin on Sponge. If a small portion of a living sponge be placed 

 between two pieces of glass under the microscope, the living substance 

 is observed grouped in irregular roundish masses, enclosing green or 

 variously-coloured granules, according to the species under examination. 

 These irregular masses appear at first sight motionless ; but by care- 

 fully adjusting the light (eclairage), on the margin of these roundish 

 diaphanous bodies a change in form is apparent at every moment ; these 

 isolated portions not unfrequently, by the tearing of the mass into pieces 

 of from y^Q- to 2ij-Q of a millimetre, move slowly in the liquid, and fix 

 themselves on the glass by means of their mobile and diaphanous ex- 

 pansions, like the true Amibes. These isolated portions might be con- 

 sidered as simple green globules filled with granules, if care be not 

 taken to view, by the aid of refraction, the borders of their expansions. 

 Such are the facts observed by Dujardin in Spongia panicea and in Cli- 

 one celata on the coast of Manche, and in the Spongilla from the Orne 

 and environs of Paris, since the year 1835. 1838, p. 67. 



M. Poiselulle is of opinion, that in those tegumentary parts of the 

 body of man constantly and habitually uncovered, such as the face, neck, 

 hands, &c., and which are consequently subjected to a medium tempera- 

 ture, the capillary vessels are of a much larger size than those situated 

 in the other parts of the skin, which conclusion he arrives at from the cir- 

 cumstance of the capillary vessels circulating blood increasing in volume 

 when the temperature is lowered to the medium in which they are placed. 



M. Philippe Pacini of Pistoie, read a memoir at the Scientific Con- 

 gress of Pisa, on a new organ discovered by him in the human subject. 

 It consists of ovoid corpuscles, or small white opalescent globules, about 

 two millimetres in size, which exist in considerable number in the sub- 

 cutaneous cellular tissue of the palms of the hands and soles of the feet 

 in man. 



Humboldt's Natural Wadding or Flannel. This substance has been 

 found in great quantity on the surface of the earth, in Silesia, after an 

 inundation of the Oder ; it is composed of a filamentous tissue of Con- 

 ferva rivularis, and fifteen different species of Infusoria, with silicious 

 Carapaces. 



