618 Proceedings of the Boyal Society 
frothing; and when the product is distilled, a large mass of carbon 
is left in the retort, and a very small quantity of distillate is 
obtained. It is probable that chloro-pyruvil, when treated with 
sulphide of potassium, will give a more satisfactory yield. It is 
the author’s intention to make a careful comparison of these two 
acids, and to transform them into amido-acids, with the object of 
making an artificial cystine ; and the results arrived at will shortly 
be communicated to the Society. 
The author’s stock of cystine being now exhausted, he will feel 
extremely indebted to any one who would spare him a small quan- 
tity for experimental purposes. 
The following Gentlemen were elected Fellows of the 
Society : — 
George Forbes, Esq., B.A., St Catherine’s College, Cambridge. 
J. Lindsay Stewart, M.D., Conservator of Forests, Punjab. 
Rev. Charles R. Teape, M.A. 
Monday , 19 th February 1872. 
Principal Sir ALEXANDER GRANT, Bart., Vice-President, 
in the Chair. 
The following Communications were read : — 
1. Remarks on Contact-Electricity. By Sir William 
Thomson. 
2. On the Curves of the Genital Passage as regulating the 
movements of the Foetus under the influence of the Resultant 
of the Forces of Parturition. By Dr J. Matthews Duncan. 
The observer of the current literature of Midwifery finds nothing 
more characteristic of it than the number of papers on the mechan- 
ism of natural parturition. These papers indicate for the most 
part an enlightened zeal, for they are engaged with a most im- 
portant branch of this mechanism, namely, the mode of action of 
the force of labour upon the foetus and upon the passages, and the 
explanation thereby obtained of the changes which take place in 
these as natural labour advances. 
For these inquiries great additional value would accrue, were the 
amount of power exerted by the combined forces of parturition 
