598 Royal Society : —Mr. Smee on the Structure of Bone. 



un Chronometre de O. H. Bestor ; pour la mesure des triangles de 

 premier ordre je me servis d'un theodolite de dix pouces de diametre 

 sortant des ateliers de Munich, pourvu de quatre verniers et don- 

 nant 10". Les elevations du sol furent determinees par des obser- 

 vations barometriques faites avec soin, souvent repetees et deduites 

 par le moyen d'observations correspondants ; elles furent calculees 

 d'apres la methode d'Oltmanns et verifiees par celles du Baron Zach. 

 — V.P. 



" Report on the co-operation of the Russian and German ob- 

 servers, in a sj^stem of simultaneous Magnetical Observations." By 

 the Rev. H. Lloyd, F.R.S., in a letter addressed to Sir John 

 F. W. Herschel, Bart., V.P.R.S. Communicated by Sir John Her- 

 schel. 



" On Magnetical Observations in Germany, Norway, and Russia." 

 By Major Sabine, R.A., V.P.R.S., in a letter to Baron von Hum- 

 boldt, For. Mem. R.S., dated Oct. 24th, 1839. 



These letters relate to communications which Professor Lloyd 

 and Major Sabine have had, conformably to a resolution of the 

 Council of the Royal Society, Avitli the scientific authorities at Got- 

 tingen, Berlin, and St. Petersburg, respecting the organization of a 

 simultaneous system of magnetical observations. It appears, from 

 these letters, that the system proposed by the Royal Society is 

 viewed with general interest and apjjrobation ; and nineteen stations 

 are enumerated at which there is reason to expect that magnetical 

 observatories, acting in concert, on that system, will be established. 

 Jan. 23. — A paper was read, entitled " On the structure of Nor- 

 mal and Adventitious Bone." By Alfred Smee, Esq., communi- 

 cated by P. M. Roget, M.D. Sec. R.S. 



On examining, by means of a microscope, very thin sections of 

 bone, prepared in a peculiar manner, the author observed a number 

 of small, irregularl3'--shaped, oblong corpuscles, arranged in circular 

 la)^ers round the canals of Havers, and also rows of similar bodies 

 distributed around both the external and the internal margins of the 

 bone. Each corpuscle is connected by numerous filaments, passing 

 in all directions, with the Haversian canals and the margins of the 

 bone, and also with the adjacent corpuscles. He finds that the ca- 

 nals of Havers are vascular tubes containing blood. The corpuscles 

 themselves are hollow, and their cavities occasionally communicate 

 with those of the canals ; their length is equal to about two or three 

 diameters of the globules of the blood. They exist in cartilaginous 

 as well as osseous structures, and are found in every instance of ad- 

 ventitious bone, such as callus after fracture, morbid ossific growths 

 either from bone or from other tissues ; and the author has also as- 

 certained their presence in the bony and cartilaginous structures of 

 inferior animals, such as birds and fishes. Measurements relating 

 to these corpuscles, b}^ Mr. Bowerbank, are subjoined, from which 

 it appears that their diameters vary from about the 10,000th to the 

 4000th, and their lengths from the 2300th to the 1400th part of an 

 inch. 



" An attempt to establish a new and general Notation, applicable 

 to the doctrine of Life Contingencies," By Peter Hardy, Esq., F.R.S, 



