240 Notes and Memoranda. 



who can assist the Moon Committee should obtain a set of their tables by commu- 

 nicating with W. T. Birt, Esq., 42, Sevvardstone Koad West, Victoria Park, 

 London, N.E. 



Experiments on Cell Formations. — The Proceedings of the Royal Society, 

 vol. xv., IS T o. 88, contains an important paper by Dr. Montgomery on cells. He 

 shows that so-called "organic " cells of cancer and other tumours expand on the 

 addition of water to several times their original size, and at last vanish in the 

 surrounding medium. The nucleus did not always participate in this change. 

 Artificial processes were then adopted, and it was found that when myeline, in its* 

 dry amorphous state, was placed in water, slender tubes shot forth from the free 

 margins, " wonderfully like nerve-tubes." When intimately mixed with white 

 of egg the myeline formed "instead of tubes, splendid clear globules, layer after 

 layer, resembling closely those of the crystalline lens formed under similar 

 conditions." " By mixing myeline with blood serum, globules were obtained 

 showing the most lively molecular motion. When the serum somewhat preponde- 

 rated, the whole globules seemed, after a while, to undergo coagulation, and 

 appeared often as beautifully and finely granulated as any real cell. When this 

 mixture of myeline and serum was spread very thinly over the glass slide, there 

 often started into existence, with the addition of water, small primary globules, 

 round which an irregular mass of granular material became gradually detached 

 from the glass slide. It at last shaped itself into a secondary globule, enclosing 

 the primary one, and constituting with it, down to the minutest details, the most 

 perfect typical cell." . . . "If the amorphous myeline be very thinly spread 

 on a glass slide instead of tubes, there will form bodies looking like rings. They 

 are actually double globules, the inner globule being more transparent than the 

 outer." When dried, and afterwards wetted, the inner globule becomes the 

 nucleus. If serum is added instead of water, biconcave di=cs are formed like blood 

 corpuscles, but larger. 



The Mammoth in the Bay of Tas. — The expectations of finding a complete 

 mammoth in this situation have been disappointed. M. Schmidt, on arriving at 

 the locality, found the remains in an imperfect state. He has brought away hair, 

 Bkin, and bones, but the internal organs had perished, and he could obtain no 

 positive information as to the nature of the creature's food. 



Silurian Life.— The Proceedings of the Royal Society, No. 90, contains an 

 account by Dr. Bigsby of a work on Silurian Fossils, which he proposes to call 

 Thesaurus Siluricus. He ?ays it " contains 7,553 species, and probably it does not 

 give the tithe of the whole Silurian life yet lying buried under the wilds of the 

 arctic circle, of Hudson's Bay, Labrador, the two Americas, Scandinavia, Australia, 

 India, etc., etc. Jt appears that the number of species known in 1856 was only 

 1,995. "In the primordial group," says Dr. Bigsby, "we find numerous repre- 

 sentatives of nearly every marine invertebrate, and we have a startling example of 

 the sudden development in very early times of the highest types of molluscan life, 

 nautili, litpites, trilobites, protichnites, etc." 



Action of Quinine on the Nerves. — M. Eulenberg states in Comtes Ren- 

 dus, that injecting three to twelve centigrammes of sulphate of quinine under the 

 skin of frogs arrests respiratory movements and the action of the heart. He con- 

 siders it to operate first on the central foci of reflex action in the spinal chord, and 

 afterwards on the cerebral foci of sensation and movement. 



The Solar Eclipse, March 6.— At Madrid, Dr. Aguilor, of the Observatory, 

 was able to make thermometrical observations under favourable conditions of clear 

 sky. He used two of Casella's thermometers, placed out of the direct rays of the 

 sun. Their coincidence all through was very close. March 5, 19h. 50m. they 

 both showed 2» 0, 5. The eclipse was at its maximum at 20h. 54m., and 20h. 55m. 

 the temperature was 7°'8 according to one instrument, and 7°"9 according to the 

 other. The lowest was at 21h., 7'*5 and 7 0, C. At 22h. 20m. one showed 26 0, 8, and 

 tho other 26 8 '5. 



