208 Royal Society :— 
variable species ; but in the greater number this is not difficult, and 
in all may be ascertained by patient inquiry ” (pp. 285, 289). 
With the above quotation we must conclude our brief notice of Dr. 
Dawson’s able and interesting work, merely remarking that, if he 
has not in all instances succeeded in entirely satisfying the minds of 
critics, he has at least offered more intelligible solutions of the greater 
mass of supposed “ difficulties” than have been hitherto arrived at— 
and such, we might add, as may be readily accepted without doing 
unnecessary violence to either Scripture or science. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
June 14, 1860.—General Sabine, R.A., Treasurer and V.P., 
in the Chair. 
“Researches on the Foraminifera.”’—Part IV. By W. B. Car- 
penter, M.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.L.S. &e. 
The author in this communication brings to a conclusion that 
series of inquiries into the structural and physiological characters of 
typical forms of Foraminifera, which he had been induced to work 
out for the sake of turning to the account of Zoological science the 
valuable collections made by Mr. Jukes in the Australian Seas and 
by Mr. Cuming in the Philippine. 
The first genus now treated of is Polystomella, the smaller and 
simpler forms of which have long been known, and of which the 
structure, so far as it can be elucidated by the examination of such 
specimens, has been already described with great care and accuracy 
by Professor W.C. Williamson. But in the comparatively gigantic 
and highly developed Polystomelle of the Australian and Philippine 
series, a feature exists which is scarcely discernible in the humbler 
forms previously examined—that feature being the extraordinary 
development of the canal-system. A spiral canal runs along the 
inner margin of either surface of every whorl; from this canal a 
series of arches is given off, of which one passes down between every 
two adjacent segments, uniting it with the other spiral canal; whilst 
another set of straight branches passes directly towards the surface 
of the shell, through the thick calcareous deposit which covers in the 
depressed centre of the spire, and which extends as far as the last- 
formed spire. From the connecting arches, successive pairs of diverg- 
ing branches proceed at frequent intervals; these, in the last whorl, 
make their way to the surface of the shell, and (when the shell is 
newly formed) open close on either side of the septal band, though, 
as the shell increases in thickness by subsequent deposit, the increased 
divergence of the branches separates their mouths from each other, 
and it very commonly happens that the two contiguous branches 
_ diverging from different arches meet and open by a single external 
pore half-way between the septal bands. When, however, one whorl 
