1879. | Proceedings of Scientific Societies. 207 
e speaker’s remarks were illustrated by numerous beautiful 
microscopical objects prepared by himself, some of which showed 
as many as four different colors, each component part of the cells 
being of a different color, all of which had been accomplished by 
artificial means, though the process was comparatively a simple 
one. The great practical use of the study of histology and the 
comparative ease with which its main principles might be ac- 
quired, were dwelt upon, as well as the great facilities which were 
now offered to students owing to the mechanical and optical per- 
fection of American microscopes, and the excellence of the tech- 
nical processes devised and discovered by our own students. 
Some further remarks were make by Dr. Dixon, Mrs. Professor 
White and Dr. Hunt, the latter of whom differed with Dr. Seiler 
in relation to some minor points relating to the origin of the con- 
aegure tissues. 
. A. Ryder then offered a résumé of recent researches on 
the wi first stages of cell-division and multiplication as worked 
‘out by the younger European biologists, who seem to have left 
off where the older workers began. These researches, he believed, 
indicated more decidedly than ever the identity of animal and 
vegetable protoplasm. In both the animal and vegetable cell the 
behavior of the central nucleus of the cell seemed to be quite the 
same; as it elongated preparatory to division, it was seen to be 
composed of two opposite poles, from which very minute granules 
were disposed in lines radiating in every direction, whilst curved 
lines of granules connected the poles. The appearance was that 
presented by iron filings scattered on a plate of glass, and made 
to arrange themselves in a curious fashion when the poles of a 
horseshoe magnet are applied beneath. It was not claimed that 
the process of cell-division was a magnetic process, but it was 
simply a resemblance which was suggested between the two phe- 
nomena. The curved lines of granules uniting the poles of the 
cell-nucleus, in the course of time, form nodes or enlargements 
which mark the point of division equatorially of the cell into two. 
The radiate arrangement of the granules at the opposite poles of 
the nucleus has induced Fol to call it an amp/zaster, meaning like 
two stars joined together. The formation of the female and male 
pronucleus in the egg-cell was also considered, and shown to be 
produced previous to fertilization, at least in the case of a star-fish 
and a small species of leech. Many further observations were 
offered in dianie bee certain recently-discovered phases of embry- 
onic developme 
r. Lewis exhibited a fine living specimen of wheel-animalcule, 
the Lymnias 
