320 PROCEEDINaS OF SOCIETIES. [^jSll. MayTlSS*' 
The following gentlemen were duly elected Fellows of the 
Society : — 
Marshall Hall, Esq. 
Frederick Lloyd, Esq. 
The Annual Soiree of the Society was held at King's College on 
the 31st March last. By the courtesy of the College authorities, all 
the available room in the building was thrown open to the visitors. 
Upwards of 1000 ladies and gentlemen, comprising the Fellows of 
the Society and their friends, were present during the evening. The 
great hall on the ground-floor was appropriated almost exclusively to 
the display of instruments by the following makers :— Messrs. K. and 
J. Beck, Mr. J. Browning, Mr. Chas. Baker, Mr. Bailey, Mr. C. Collins, 
Mr. Crouch, Messrs. Horn and Thornthwaite, Mr. J. How, Mr. Ladd, 
Mr. Moginie, Messrs. Murray and Heath, Messrs. Newton, Mr. J. T. 
Norman, Messrs. Powell and Lealand, Mr. Thos. Ross, Mr. Steward, 
Mr. Stanley, Mr. J. Swift, and Mr. E. Wheeler. The small portion 
of the room not used by the makers was occupied by geological and 
mineralogical cabinets, kindly lent for the occasion by Prof. Tennant, 
F.G.S. The walls of the various apartments, through the kindness 
of Dr. Beale, Prof. Rymer Jones, Messrs. Mummery, and W. T. 
Suffolk, were adorned with various coloured diagrams. 
In a theatre in the lower corridor, Mr. J. How exhibited, at 
intervals in the course of the evening. Dr. Maddox's photomicrographs 
by oxyhydrogen light ; the oxyhydrogen polariscope ; and the kaleido- 
scope by oxyhydrogen light ; and in another room, Mr. C. J. "Wood- 
ward, with his new apparatus, displayed the interesting phenomena of 
" the cohesion figures of liquids." 
On the upper floor, the museum of George III. with its varied 
physical apparatus and mechanical models, and the Natural History 
Museum, were opened to the inspection of the company ; the re- 
mainder of the rooms, excepting those set apart for refreshments, 
being occupied by the microscopes of the Fellows, and visitors, and by 
the Society's instruments. A collection of about twenty early micro- 
scopes, partly the property of the Society and partly the property of 
Mr. Williams, was exhibited in one of the rooms of the library. 
Among these was the Lucernal microscope, with specular iron as the 
object ; and Martin's fine instrument, the object displayed being the 
iridescent crystals of bismuth, shown in a field of unusual size. 
Without instituting an invidious comparison between the objects 
displayed by the several exhibitors, special mention may be made of 
a novel and highly-attractive exhibition by Mr. Gilbertson of crystals 
of sulphate of copper and magnesia in a polarizing microscope, the 
prism and selenites of which rotated by the mechanical agency of 
clockwork. By the kind permission of Dr. W. B. Carpenter, a chart, 
illustrative of the recent deep-sea dredgings, undertaken by him in 
conjunction with Dr. Wy ville Thomson, was suspended in the " Mars- 
den " Library. Dr. Carpenter also lent a number of slides, containing 
objects which had been dredged at various depths, among which were 
the following : — A " fragment of a shell of Brissus," found at a depth 
