342 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
plants to assimilate inorganic compounds in sunlight. Later Bee 
however, went to show that they drew their nitrogen in the same 
manner as green plants, but that they could not decompose ata 
acid like them, and therefore depended for their carbon upon the assi- 
unds 
lation of carbonic compounds already formed in organisms. To t 
green plants, and especially to the Alge, the faculty of assimilating 
_ sara compoun nds was asaruledenied. But certain true phan 
mic parasites produced chlorophyll, and the assumption might ae 
stances at present known in which green | Algee led a parasitic existence. 
‘On a Peach-coloured Bacterium.” By E. Ray Lankester.*—In 
the histological laboratory of Exeter College, Oxford, the author had 
made observations during the past summer on two jars of river yee! 
side of the glass most sensed to the light. After the interval of the 
vacation it was found that the same growth developed itself in great 
abundance in a large vessel in which had been left two cray-fish 
(Astacus), The animals had died and were far advanced in pag 
and the whole of the sides of the vessels and the remains of the Astace 
were coloured with a film of a fine purple-red tint. The author found 
that the organism to the multiplication of which the colour was due 
was the same in the two cases. The remai 
occupied by a description of the distinct forms which this organism 
assumed, and which the identity of colour ater nag author to corre- 
late as stages in the life of one and the same speci 
Evening Lecture. Prof. A. W. Williamson, President, in the chair. 
—Prot. W. C. lamson commenced his lecture by calling attention 
to one on the subject of coal delivered a few years ago at Bradford by 
Prof. Huxley, and to the progress which had been made in our know- 
ledge of coal and coal-plants since that date. With that lecture 
within their reach it was not necessary for him to enter in detail upon 
any such a a rage vegetable origin =: coal, and the 
ry 0 
once a vogetable » oil which accumulated under the shade of primeval 
orests growing on areas of depression. In time the land sank beneath 
the sea, and the vegetable elements were buried under layers of sand 
Huxley airested attention to some minute coin-like bodies which are 
very abundant in some coals, and which had been previously noticed 
by Witham, Morris, Dawson, and Balfour. The larger of these bodies 
ce tem See 
* Published in the ‘‘ Quarterly Journ. Microsc. Science,” Oct., 1873. 
