518 
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society. No. 68. 8v'o. — From 
the Society. 
Abstracts of the Geological Society of London. No. 72. 8vo. — 
From the Society. 
Monthly Notice of the Royal Astronomical Society. November 
1861. 8 vo. — From the Society. 
Monthly Returns of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. November 
1861. 8 vo. — From the Registrar- General. 
On the Concrete used in the late Extension of the London Docks. 
By George Robertson, C.E. 8vo. — From the Author. 
An Investigation into the Theory and Practice of Hydraulic Mortar. 
By George Robertson, C.E. — From the Author. 
Monday , 20 th January 1862. 
JAMES T. GIBSON- CRAIG, Esq., Treasurer, in the Chair. 
The following Communications w r ere read : — 
1. Note on the Phosphorescence of Berbe. By Professor 
Allman. 
The author stated, as the results of some experiments which he 
had made on the phosphorescence of a species of Beroe ( Idyia ) 
which abounded during the last summer in the Firth of Forth, that 
the light is never emitted as long as the animal is exposed to day- 
light ; and that withdrawal from the daylight for some time is 
nece'ssary, in order to impart to the Berbe the property of phos- 
phorescence. 
A glass jar, containing several living specimens of the Berbe in sea 
water, was removed from the daylight into a dark room, when not 
the slightest indication of phosphorescence could be detected, though 
the animals were subjected to precisely the same kind of irritation 
as is found to be always followed by the emission of light during 
the night. But after the Beroes had remained for about twenty 
minutes in the dark, the phosphorescence had become as vivid as by 
night ; the slightest irritation would call it forth, and the vibration 
communicated to the jar by a blow on the table where it lay, was 
