554 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



Mr. Curties described a polarizing Microscope by Seibert, whicli 

 he exhibited. 



Mr. Sigsworth requested permission to ask a question with 

 regard to a paragraph in the last Eeport of the Council. 



The President thought that as the meetings were intended chiefly 

 for the consideration of matters of scientific interest, it would be 

 better if questions on business were referred in the first instance 

 to the Cuuncil, as it was often impossible to deal properly with 

 questions of which no previous notice had been given. 



Mr. Sigsworth said he desired to refer to the second paragraph 

 of that portion of the Eeport relating to the " Proceedings at the 

 Meetings " (see ante, p. 370), and to inquire if the papers which were 

 summarized at the meetings were also similarly summarized in the 

 Journal ? 



Mr. Crisp said they were not, but that all the communications 

 which were accepted by the Council as papers, and so read at the 

 meetings, were printed in extenso in the Transactions. Notes were 

 printed in the Summary. 



Dr. E. Cutter's letter was read affirming the correctness of his 

 observations on Asthmatos ciliaris as the cause of one form of 

 epidemic influenza (see ante, p. 376). 



Mr. Stewart described what he believed to be a new and very 

 interesting annelid, which had been brought up on the Eastern 

 Telegraph Company's cable raised for repairs in the neighbourhood 

 of Singapore. 



Mr. Groves asked if Mr. Stewart had any idea as to the way in 

 which the calcareous plates attached to the jaws of these worms acted 

 in cutting or boring ? 



Mr. Stewart said he had not been able to detect any special 

 structure in connection with them which would enable him to say 

 with certainty, but his impression was that the boring might be done 

 by some sort of rotating action, like that of a cheese-taster. 



The President said that some time ago the Telegraph Main- 

 tenance Company took up a cable off the north coast of Spain, which 

 had been down about six years, and they sent him a piece in order 

 that he might be able to form an opinion as to the rate at which 

 deposits were formed at the bottom of the sea. The cable was laid 

 in the first instance on soft oozy ground — globigerina ooze — and 

 had no doubt partially sunk into it, though they had no means 

 of ascertaining how far. He found that corals and polyzoa had 

 begun to grow on it, and a number of minute corals were brought up 

 alive ; some of these were about \ inch long ; most of them were upon 

 the top of the cable, but some had grown a little way down the side, 

 and he was enabled to judge from these appearances that scarcely any 

 deposit had accumulated during the period the cable had been down. 

 But he noticed as a very curious fact, that nearly all the corals were 



