1864] Mr. Lee on the Functions of the Foetal Liver j ^c. 549 



-^ths of an incli. And it is further remarkable in this instance, that the 

 gigantic size attained hy ReceptacuUtes proceeds less from an extraordinary- 

 multiplication of segments, than from such an enormous development of 

 the individual segments as naturally to suggest grave doubts of the chai ac- 

 ter of this fossil, until the exactness of its structural conformity to its 

 comparatively minute recent representative had been worked out. 



In a private communication to myself, Dr. Dawson has expressed the 

 belief that Stromatopora and several other reputed corals of the Palaeozoic 

 series will prove in reality to be gigantic Zoophytic Rhizopods, like Eozoon 

 and Receptaciilites ; and I have little doubt that further inquiry will 

 justify this anticipation. Should it prove correct, our ideas of the import- 

 ance of the Rhizopod type in the earlier periods of geological history will 

 undergo a vast extension ; and many questions will arise in regard to its 

 relations to those higher types which it would seem to have anticipated. 



In the present state of our knowledge, however, or rather of our igno- 

 rance, I think it better to leave all such questions undiscussed, limiting 

 myself to the special object of this communication — the application of my 

 former Researches into the Minute Structure of the Foraminifera, to the 

 determination of the nature and affinities of the oldest type of Organic 

 Life yet known to the geologist. 



December 22, 1864. 



Dr. WILLIAM ALLEN MILLER, Treasurer and Vice-President, 



in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



I. ^^On the Eunctions of the Foetal Liver and Intestines.'^ By 

 Robert James Lee, B.A. Cantab=, Fellow of the Cambridge 

 Philosophical Society. Communicated by Robert Lee, M.D, 

 Received November 1, 1864. 



(x'Vbstract.) 



After some introductory remarks, the author observes that the intes- 

 tines of the fcetus, between the fifth and ninth months of intra-uterine hfe, 

 '* contain a flocculent substance of orange-pink colour in the duodenal 

 portion, a slimy green substance (the meconium) in their lower portion. 



" The nature of the former w as ascertained by Dr. Prout to be highly 

 albuminous and nutritious. The nature of the latter, of which Dr. John 

 Davy has given a complete analysis (Trans. Med. Chir. Soc), is simply 

 excrementitious. In the intermediate portion of the intestine the substance 

 is of intermediate character; the more nutritive its property, the higher its 

 position in the intestine." 



He next points out that the mesenteric glands which belong to the 



