60 



' THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [March, 1881. 



merited upon. How the variations in 

 animals and in plants that are desirable, 

 are perpetuated, was explained, and nu- 

 merous examples given. 



Huxley was the first to apply the evolu- 

 tion hypothesis to man, in his three essays. 

 History of Man-like Apes, Relation of 

 Man to the Lower Animals, On Some 

 Fossil Remains. These essays were given 

 in brief. Darwin's Descent of Man, in 

 which he carries out his theory of 

 the evolution of man, was referred to. 

 Neither Darwin nor Huxley have formu- 

 lated a theory accounting for the begin- 

 ning of life. But Hackel carries his 

 theory of evolution back to the origin of 

 life, upon a purely materialistic basis, 

 commencing with a spontaneous genera- 

 tion of the monera, tracing the develop- 

 ment from the structureless protoplasmic 

 mass, through twenty divisions of ances- 

 tral stages, to man. 



The entire lecture was closely listened 

 to, and gave great delight to the intelli- 

 gent audience assembled. 



The paper was discussed by Prof. I'ord, 

 Dr. Krackowizer, J. H. Barney, the Presi- 

 ident, and others. 



Thad. S. Up. de Graff, 



Secretary. 



LIVERPOOL (ENG.) 



The Annual Meeting of the Liverpool 

 Microscopical Society was held at the 

 Royal Institution, Colquitt Street, Dr. 

 Hicks, the retiring President, in the Chair. 



On the nomination of the committee, 

 Dr. Hicks and Mr. W. H. Weightman, 

 were elected Vice-Presidents, Mr. W. J. 

 Baker and Mr. I. C. Thompson, F. R. M. S., 

 were reappointed Honorary Treasurer and 

 Honorary Secretary, respectively. 



Dr. Carter, the President-elect, then de- 

 livered his inaugural address. In some 

 preliminary remarks he criticised unfavor- 

 ably the presumed universal diffusion of a 

 single substance of uniform composition, 

 which serves as the physical basis of life. 

 What, at most, could be meant, unless 

 evidence was to be disregarded, was 

 "protoplasms" (plural) — i. e., the sub- 

 stance special to each kind of organism, 

 on the presence of which, its vital mani- 

 festations might depend, and not a single 

 protoplasm of undeviating composition, 

 which lay at the root of all vital manifes- 

 tations whatever. He drew attention 

 then to the influence exerted by a number 

 of agents on vegetable cell-development, 

 and more especially of light and darkness. 



pointing out simple apparatus by which 

 the action of rays of light of different re-* 

 frangibilities could be studied ; of oxygen, 

 carbonic acid, iodine and ether. He gave 

 illustrations, in growing seedlings, of the 

 retarding effect exercised on vegetable: 

 cell-development of even very minute 

 quantities of alcohol, one part in 400; 

 often preventing development "altogether,! 

 while a markedly retarding effect waai 

 produced by even one part in 3,200. He? 

 also drew attention to the strong inherent 

 vitality of the vegetable embryo of even 

 the more highly organized plants, by the 

 power which it possessed, of surviving 

 even severe mutilation, illustrating the 

 fact by a number of actively-growing 

 seedlings, reared from seeds which had 

 been cut into various pieces, and other- 

 wise injured. A very interesting fact, 

 which seemed to have been established, 

 was that light, either alone or in conjunc- 

 tion with moderate warmth, was not suf- 

 ficient to develop chlorophyll in etiolated 

 plants. Specimens of seedlings in illus- 

 tration of this proposition, which is con- 

 trary to the generally conceived opinion, 

 were exhibited. 



The thanks of the meeting were ac- 

 corded to Dr. Carter, for his address, and 

 the usual conversazione followed. 



ONEIDA CO., N. Y. 

 Friday evening, January 25th, sixteen 

 gentlemen of this city and vicinity, who 

 are interested in microscopy, met and 

 formed an organization, to be known as 

 the " Oneida Co. Microscopical Society." 

 The constitution and by-laws adopted 

 are essentially those of the American 

 Microscopical Association. The follow- 

 ing officers were elected for the coming 

 year : President, Prof. A. H. Chester ; 

 Vice-President, Dr. Theo. Deecke ; Sec- 

 retary, Geo. C. Hodges ; Treasurer, 

 H. P. Mallory ; Memb. Ex. Comm., Thos. 

 Burt. 



Exchanges. 



[Exchanges are inserted in this column without 

 charge. They will be strictly limited to mounted 

 objects, and material for mounting.] 



11 



Several dozen slides, French and English, general 

 natural history subjects, exchanged for good rock or 

 mineral sections — list furnished. 



WM. M. COURTIS, M. E., 



Wyandotte, Mich. 



Well-mounted diatoms, in exchange for other good 

 slides, material, etc., etc. W. H. TIVY, 



Sixth and Olive Sts, St. Louis, Mo. 



