PKOCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 335 



Mr. Crisp exhibited Schieck's No. 8 Microscope in which a fine 

 adjustment was obtained by tilting the stage at one end. This plan 

 had been commented upon unfavourably at one of the meetings of the 

 Society some years back, but it was pointed out in answer by some 

 German writers that sufficient attention had not been given to the 

 fact that it was only applied to quite cheap forms of stand. High 

 powers would not be used with these stands and therefore the deviation 

 of the stage from a plane would be hardly perceptible, and it was 

 alleged that no better form of fine adjustment could be found without 

 departing from the essence of the problem, i. e. maintaining the low 

 price of the instruments. 



Col. O'Hara's further communication on some peculiarities of 

 form in blood-corpuscles, with five enlarged photographs, was read. 



Mr. Rosseter's paper " On an Annular Muscular Formation in 

 Stephanoceros Eichhornii" was read. 



Mr. Crisp said that the authorities whom he had consulted on the 

 subject, including Dr. Hudson, had not observed any such circular 

 muscles in a rotifer as were drawn by Mr. Kosseter, though they were 

 not prepared to say such a lusus naturce was impossible. Dr. Hudson 

 thought it remarkable how experts differed. Ehrenberg as well as 

 Eosseter gave four pairs of muscles in Stephanoceros. Gosse gives 

 five, while he (Dr. Hudson) considers there are six pairs, one pair 

 being almost invariably hidden from view, whichever position of the 

 animal happens to be caught. It can be readily understood how, if a 

 glass tube had lines ruled down its length, some (at the sides of the 

 field of view) would always be projected on each other, and confounded 

 with the two edges. 



Mr. Massee's paper " On the Function and Growth of Cells in the 

 genus Polysiphonia," was read by Prof. Bell (see p. 198). 



Mr. Bennett thought that the great interest attaching to this paper 

 was the illustration which it afforded of the continuity of protoplasm. 

 The slides exhibited required, however, a higher power than was 

 applied to them under the Microscope upon the table, in order to 

 demonstrate the fact of their absolute continuity, but he might say 

 that he had subjected them to examination with the highest powers, 

 and could find no break in the continuity. Botanists would, he thought, 

 be agreed that this theory of the continuity of protoplasm was without 

 doubt the most important discovery of its kind which had been made 

 of late years. Prof. Percival Wright, of Dublin, was the first to call 

 attention to it, and from the observations of others who had followed, 

 it seemed clear that the old idea that the cell was an element in itself^ 

 would have to be abandoned. The discovery was also of the greatest 

 importance in explaining the irritability of the organs of plants, such 

 as the leaves of the Mimosa, and he could only express a hope that 

 the further attention called to the subject by this paper would lead 

 to more conclusive evidence being obtained. 



Mr. Groves said he had lately tried to repeat Mr. Gardiner's 



