Dublin Microscopical Club. 421 



Section of E/ndidjpnis of Dog. — Dr. P. S. Abraham presented a 

 section through the epididj'mis of a dog hardened in a i-per-cent. 

 solution of chromic acid and stained with logwood, chiefly to show 

 the relations which exist between a cell and its cilia. The latter 

 were seen to be prolongations, as it were, of the protoplasmic net- 

 work, which, arranged longitudinally in the columnar epithelial 

 cell, makes up its substance. Dr. Abraham made some remarks 

 on the movement of cilia, and referred to Dr. Klein's mechanical 

 explanation. 



Prohlemntic Closterimn-lilce " SemiceU,'" its Nature, or its Place in 

 Nature, undecided. — Mr. Archer showed an example, about the third 

 or fourth he had met with, of the empty " wall " of what appeared, 

 as regards figure and aspect, to l)e a Closterium of large size and coarse 

 build ; but, seeing that he had never found any green contents, or 

 even the remains of any green contents, and not only so, but that, 

 previously as now, the example appeared to be only a " half- cell," 

 and that (at the broader end or middle of the supposed Closterium- 

 ccll) as it were rudely torn, not seemingly separated at any line of 

 suture, possibly after all this might even not be a Desmid at all. 

 Still its curvature and form were those of a Closterium — the wall 

 thick and red, the ends bluntly rounded (not unlike the contour of 

 Closterium Ehretibergii), the "lower" margin curved a little upwards 

 towards the apex, and the superficies were ornamented by slightly 

 irregular lines of erect gland-like papillae, which, viewed at the 

 edge, imparted to it a fringe-like aspect ; sometimes a series of these 

 papillae became for a little space interrupted, and sometimes stopped 

 short ere reaching the gradually narrowing extremity, as it were 

 to avoid overcrowding at the apex ; the intervals between the lines 

 of pajiillse smooth. 



Thus this form resembled a good deal that named by Reinsch 

 Closterium Braunii, which, however, it assuredly was not. That form 

 is no doubt a true and remarkable Closterium, whereas, as seen, the 

 present.form remained not a little of a puzzle. In Closterium Braunii 

 the verrucula composing the longitudinal lines are very closely 

 posed, so much as at first sight to appear as ordinary striae, which 

 they are not ; whei^eas in the present form the elongate verrucula 

 show very appreciable and somewhat irregular intervals as they run 

 in slightly irregular file. Can this object belong to any animal or 

 animal's limb ? The determination of the puzzling object now 

 shown, one way or the other, would be a matter of interest. 



An Ancient Sea-weed. — Dr. E. Perceval Wright exhibited sections 

 of a small morsel of marble from the " Calcaire Carbonifere, terrain 

 primaire," of Namur, in Belgium, under a |-inch objectivci which 

 clearly showed the cell-system of an Alga. This most ancient sea- 

 weed had been described by M. Municr-Chalmas in 1876 as Litho- 

 thamnion marmoreum. The wonderful state of preservation of this 

 fossil plant enabled almost the minutest details of cell-structure to 

 be seen. 



Ann. & Mag. iV. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. vii. 31 



