BRISTOL NATURALISTS' SOCIETY. 
4 
SECTIONAL MEETINGS. 
From the Bristol Daily Post of November 16^A, 1865, 
I Botanical Section, Oct. 19. — Mr. A. Leipner, pre- 
|flident, in the chair. The honorary secretary brought 
forward, for the approval of the members, a system for 
more eflPectually working the study of Botany during the 
winter months, proposing that at each meeting a subject 
should be named, to be discussed at the following one, to 
[enable each member in the meantime to collpct such mate- 
Irials as he could, whether in the shape of communication, 
drawing, or only actual specimens. The plan was favourably 
received, and the president suggested as subjects suited for 
such combined working the various kinds of starch, the 
functions and forms of storaata, the occurrence of Riphides 
in the tissues of plants, the markings on woody fibre, the 
position of the medullary rays, &c. It was agreed that the 
subject of Starch should occupy the next evening, and 
several members undertook to investigate the structure of 
particular plants. A section of the stem of Pinus sylvestris 
was shown, exhibiting the production of a young branch 
from the parent stalk, and consequent displacement of the 
surroundiner wood. It was stated that the manner in which 
the woody fibre of the branch joined that of the stem had 
I not yet been made out, and would be a suitable subject for 
j close investigation, 
j Geological Section, Oct. 26.— Mr. W. Sanders, F.R.S., 
president, in the chair. Mr, A. Leipner brought for- 
ward some new views on the arrangement of some soecifis 
of corals belonging to the Devonian period. Mr. W. W. 
Stoddart, F.Gr.S , exhibited a set of fossil otoliths which he 
had collected from the Tertiary beds of Hampshire and 
Sasaex, After a short description of their difFerent shapes 
and characters, the true position and office in the animal of 
these curious concretions were shown by the dissection of 
some fishes' heads. The author observed that there were 
six of these otoliths in the head of every fish, and mentioned 
the remarkable circumstance that the otolith of some of the 
cartilaginous fishes, as the sturgeon, was of stone-like 
hardness. After calling attention to the exquisite structure 
of the hearing apparatus of fishes, and its intimate connex- 
ion with the brain, the author gave it as his opinion that 
otoliths were deposited by a dialytic process, a thin section 
showing layer upon layer, in strict accordance with such an 
origin. 
Chemical and Photographic Section, Nov. 8.— Dr, 
W. B. Herapath, F.R.S., president, in the chair.— Mr. 
Rogers exhibited a deal board which bad been exposed to 
wind and weather for seven months with a printed bill 
pasted upon it, and the surface of the wood of which had 
been so acted upon that when the paper was removod an 
impression of the bill remained, which could not be effaced. 
As an example of a similar kind of surface action it was 
mentioned that many glass plates, once used in the collodion 
process, had permanent images left upon them, which could 
not be cleaned off by the most powerful detergents. 
Mr. John Beattie made a verbal communication upon the 
results of his experience with lenses and in developing. After 
speaking of the desirability of lenses of large angular 
aperture for landscape photographv, and referring to 
Sutton's fluid lens, the Pantascopic camera, and other 
devices for attaining the desired result, he described 
Harris's globe lens, of 2^ in. focal length, with which good 
pictures of near objects at wide ineles could be taken, and 
also the triolets by Ross and Dallmeyer, which gave an 
