468 



more or less globular, composing what have been termed fibrinous 

 corpuscles. These corpuscles have been considered to be the nuclei 

 of cells ; but the author regards them as being merely accidental 

 fragments of broken down tissues, adhering to the filaments, and 

 noways concerned in their developement. The more regularly dis- 

 posed granules, which are observed to occupy the spaces intervening 

 between the filaments composing the ordinary cellular tissue, he 

 considers as being fatty matter deposited within these spaces. He, 

 in like manner, regards the observations tending to show the celltdar 

 origin of the fibrous, cartilaginous, and osseous tissues, as altogether 

 fallacious ; and maintains that the cells, which these animal textures 

 exhibit when viewed under the microscope, are simply spaces occur- 

 ring in the more solid substance of these structures, like the cavities 

 which exist in bread. These views are pursued by the author in 

 discussing the formation of the skin, the blood-vessels, and the 

 nerves, and in controverting the theory of secretion, founded on the 

 action of the interior surfaces of the membranes constituting cells. 



2. " Contributions to Terrestrial Magnetism." — No. V. By Lieut.- 

 Colonel Edward Sabine, R.A., F.R.S. 



In this paper the author details and discusses the magnetic obser- 

 vations made on board Her Majesty's ships Erebus and Terror, 

 between October 1840 and April 1841, being the first summer which 

 the expedition under the command of Captain James Clark Ross, 

 R.N., passed within the Antarctic Circle. 



The elimination of the influence of the ship's iron in the calcula- 

 tion of the results of these observations occupies a considerable por- 

 tion of the paper. Formulae for this purpose are derived from M. 

 Poisson's fundamental equations, and the constants in the formulae 

 are computed for each of the two ships, from observations made on 

 board expressly with that object. With these constants, tables of 

 double entry are formed for each of the three magnetic elements, 

 namely, declination, inclination, and intensity, giving the required 

 corrections of each, for all the localities of the voyage. 



These and other corrections being applied, the results are tabu- 

 lated and charts formed from them. The full consideration of the 

 charts is postponed until the whole of the materials collected by the 

 Antarctic Expedition shall be before the Royal Society. Meanwhile 

 the paper concludes with the following general remarks, viz. 



1. The observations of declination, particularly those which point 

 out the course of the lines of and of 10° east, indicate a more 

 westerly position than the one assigned by M. Gauss in the ^ Atlas 

 des Erdmagnetismus,' for the spot in which all the lines of declina- 

 tion unite. The progression of the lines in the southern hemisphere 

 generally, from secular change, is from east to west ; the difference 

 consequently is in the direction in which a change should be found 

 in comparing earlier with more recent determinations. 



2. The general form of the curves of higher inclination in the 

 southern hemisphere is much more analogous to that in the northern 

 than appears in M. Gauss's maps. For example, the isoclinal line 



