558 



form the subject of the present memoir. With the form of gas bat- 

 tery last described in that paper, by which the interfering action of 

 the external air is excluded, he finds that deutoxide of nitrogen as- 

 sociated with oxygen gives a continuous voltaic current ; and that 

 the volumes respectively absorbed by the electrolyte are as four to 

 one, indicating the formation of hyponitrous acid. 



Passing to the more im.mediate object of the present paper, he states 

 that having observed nitrogen procured by the combustion of phos- 

 phorus to give rise, in the gas battery, to a temporary voltaic cur- 

 rent, he was led to believe that phosphorus, although an insoluble 

 non-conductor, might, by means of the gas battery, be made the 

 excitant of a continuous voltaic current, analogous to the zinc ele- 

 ment of an ordinary voltaic combination. This expectation was ve- 

 rified by experiments, a scries of which is given ; phosphorus being 

 suspended in various gases and voltaically associated with oxygen. 

 The experiments were continued during several months, and the 

 results indicated the same consumption of phosphorus with reference 

 to the oxygen, as would occur by the formation of phosphorous acid; 

 the phosphorus being thus burned by oxygen at a distance. Phos- 

 phorus and iodine, both non-conducting solids, being each suspended 

 in nitrogen in the associated tubes of a gas battery, give a continu- 

 ous voltaic current, and are consumed in equivalent ratios. Sulphur, 

 suspended in nitrogen and associated with oxygen, gives a voltaic 

 current when fused. Other volatile electro-pcsitive bodies, such as 

 camphor, essential oils, sether and alcohol, when placed in nitrogen 

 and associated with oxygen, gave a continuous voltaic current. 



The author observes that the gas battery, which in his former ex- 

 periments introduced gases, by the present experiments renders solid 

 and liquid insoluble non-conductors the exciting constituents of vol- 

 taic combinations, and enables us to ascertain their electro-chemical 

 relatiouilf it also introduces the galvanometer as a test of vaporiza- 

 tion. 



A new form of gas battery is described, in which an indefinite 

 number of cells are charged by the hydrogen evolved from a single 

 piece of zinc ; the oxygen of the atmosphere supplying the electro- 

 negative element- The charge of the battery is self-sustained, in a 

 manner somewhat similar to the Doebereiner light apparatus. 



" The Blood-Corpuscle considered in its different phases of deve- 

 lopment in the Animal Series." By Thomas Wharton Jones, Esq., 

 F.R.S., Lecturer on Anatomy, Physiology and Pathology, at the 

 Charing Cross Hospital. 



This paper is divided into three parts : the first relating to the 

 blood-corpuscles of the Vertebrata ; the second to those of the In- 

 vertebrata ; and the last to a comparison between the two. He first 

 describes the microscopic appearances of these corpuscles in differ- 

 ent classes of vertebrate animals, beginning with the skate and the 

 frog, and proceeding to birds and mammifera ; first in their early 

 embryonic state, and next in the subsequent periods of their growth. 

 He finds in oviparous vertebrata generally, four principal forms of 



