mid Utosm^ial <%ku% 
— ♦ 
Wednesday, October 16th. — Mr. W. L. Carpenter, President, 
in the chair. 
Dr. C. T. Hudson made a communication upon some points in the 
structure of Floscularia campanulata, illustrating his remarks with drawings 
and living specimens. 
Mr. F. Martin read a paper upon the Alkaloids, and the microscopic 
appearance of their various crystalline salts, &c. He presented to the 
Society a series of preparations illustrating his paper. 
The Hon. Secretary, Mr. W. J. Fed den, brought forward the question 
of publishing the Proceedings of the Society, and as the meeting thought 
that publication in some form was desirable, the matter was referred 
to the Standing Committee to consider and report upon. 
Wednesday, November 20th. — Mr. W. L. Carpenter, President 
in the chair. 
The report of the Standing Committee, on the best mode of publishing 
the Society's Proceedings, was brought up, and its recommendations were 
adopted. It was resolved to try the experiment for one year, of publish- 
ing reports of the meetings, as well as abstracts, &c, of the papers read, 
and of issuing them with the Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists' 
Society. 
Rev. Walter Whiting then made a verbal communication upon a 
simple method of showing microscopic transparencies for a Table-lecture. 
The apparatus employed consisted of an ordinary lantern, such as might 
be used with the oxy- hydrogen microscope, the back part of which was 
removed, to allow room for the oil reservoir of the lamp. A round- wick 
argand burner was supplied with paraffin oil by a tin tube connected with 
the external reservoir, thus avoiding all risk of explosion from the over- 
heating of the oil inside the lantern. By condensing lenses in front of 
the lamp, sufficient light was produced to give a bright disk from 3 to 4 
feet in diameter, at a distance of about 5 feet from the lantern. The 
lenses used for producing the image were the ordinary portrait combina- 
tion of a camera, and the objects exhibited were all photographs of micro- 
scopic preparations, mostly taken by Mr. Whiting himself, and included a 
great variety of subjects from the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. 
Many of these, especially where the object photographed had been per- 
fectly flat, were very successful, and well calculated to illustrate popular 
lectures at a very small cost, as well as to afford a ready means of pro- 
ducing large lecture diagrams in an accurate and simple way, since the 
outline of the image projected on the screen could be readily traced with 
a pencil. 
It is hoped that, in the next issue, fuller reports will be given of Dr. 
Hudson's and Mr. Martin's papers, read on October 16th. 
