712 
PROCEEDINGS OP THE SOCIETY. 
bronze was free from this objection ; it was light and strong, and would 
resist ordinary acids, such as acetic acid. 
Mr. Swift thought it would be an objection to aluminium bronze that 
it had so much the appearance of gun-metal. He could not say any- 
thing as to whether the aluminium would be damaged in the way sug- 
gested by Mr. White, as he had not subjected it to tests of that kind. 
The thanks of the Society were given to Mr. Swift and Mr. Smith 
for their exhibits. 
Prof. J. B. Farmer gave an interesting resume of his paper “ On the 
Division of the Chromosomes in the First Mitosis in the Pollen-Mother- 
Cell of Lilium ” (see ante , pp. 501-4). The subject was illustrated by 
drawings on the blackboard and by several large diagrammatic models, 
to which frequent reference was made. 
The Chairman was sure the Fellows of the Society would agree in 
thanking Prof. Farmer, to whom they were greatly obliged tor the beau- 
tiful exhibition he had given them of the models upon the table. He 
scarcely pretended to know much on a subject of this kind, but it hap- 
pened that he had seen a very great deal of the sort of thing which had been 
described, and he had any number of slides from a friend who had “ gone 
wrong ” in it, but he certainly never had so clear an idea of the matter 
as he had obtained from seeing these models. Of all methods of illus- 
tration there was nothing to compare with, a model for making it clear 
to those who were not otherwise cognisant of a subject. 
Prof. Bell said he should like to re-echo the remarks of their Chair- 
man as~to their indebtedness to Prof. Farmer on that occasion. As 
editor of the Journal, he had found it necessary to read very closely the 
proofs of Miss Sargant’s paper, and he found it equally necessary to read 
closely the proofs of Prof. Farmer’s paper ; but he felt, notwithstanding 
the attention which he had given to them, that he was greatly indebted 
to Prof. Farmer for bringing down these models and explaining the 
process by their means in the way he had done. He congratulated 
Prof. Farmer upon the ingenious and successful manner in which these 
models had been constructed, and ventured to express a hope that some 
day he would make some more, and that when he did so he would bring 
them down to the Society. 
The contents of Mr. F. J. Reid’s paper, “ On a Fluorescent Bacillus v 
were communicated to the Society by Dr. B. G. Hebb, who said that 
he regarded it as a valuable contribution to the subject. 
The thanks of the Society were given to the author of the paper, and 
to Dr. Hebb for reading it. 
Prof. Bell said they had an intimation of a paper for the next 
meeting entitled, “Numerical Aperture Reconsidered.” This subject 
had already led to some very long and sometimes acrimonious discus- 
sions, and though he hoped it would not be discussed acrimoniously on 
the coming occasion, he felt sure there were many who felt sufficiently 
interested in it to join in its discussion ; those who intended to do so 
could be supplied with copies of the proofs of the paper on application to 
the Assistant-Secretary. 
