58 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
the other. He called attention to the manner in which spicules in the 
Oakland specimen were placed at their point of juncture, under one 
and over another in a way that served to strengthen the whole fabric, 
and then exhibited a slide of the leathery or horny sponge of com- 
merce in the way of comparison. 
Mr. Hanks presented the Society with nine species of fossil 
corals, fossil crinoids and crinoid stems, from various localities. 
Dr. A. Mead Edwards, who was present, exhibited a slide of Volvox 
glolator, which he mounted in a saturated solution of salicylic acid 
some years ago, which had not changed a particle since it was first 
stained and immersed in the medium. Upon examination under a 
quarter and an eighth objective, the cilia were seen protruding from 
the membranous envelope, as well as the delicate radiating processes 
extending from the sides of the gonidia within the globe. Dr. Edwards 
also exhibited a section cutter, fitted with various-sized holders for 
the object, and a super-stage of his invention. He explained the 
advantages of a growing cell, which he had satisfactorily used for 
many years, formed of a square piece of glass, cemented to a thicker 
one, perforated with an aperture from one to two inches in diameter. 
Placing upon this receptacle for water a glass to cover the opening, 
in which two minute openings had been drilled, a common thin cover 
could be placed over the living desmid, diatom, or protococcus, and 
watched while it passed through its various stages of development. 
The regular meeting of the Society was held on Thursday evening, 
March 15, with Vice-President Henry C. Hyde in the chair. 
Mr. H. G. Hanks presented a sample of vegetable substance found 
on the beds of dried-up lakes in the deserts of Arizona and south- 
east California. He stated that some parties here had conceived the 
idea that paper could be made of the material, which was white and 
cottony in appearance. An examination with the microscope showed 
the filaments to be composed of cells loosely joined. The whole mass 
was but a collection of interwoven filaments of Confervas, which had 
lived during some flood of water, and as the lakes became dry, were 
left to be blown about by the winds, and as they are often found 
apparently descending from the sky, have been named aerophytes, 
though formerly regarded as of meteoric origin. It would be but a 
waste of capital to endeavour to manufacture paper of a material 
which has no fibre, though perhaps a felt-like body might be obtained. 
A slide, with a portion of the filaments, was examined, and the subject 
of its being of no value for use as a paper material, being plainly 
evident from a microscopical examination of its structure, led 
Dr. Edwards to speak of the popular idea regarding the rice-paper 
common with us, and to the fact that it was not manufactured as 
paper is usually ; in fact, not manufactured at all, but only shaved off 
in thin sheets from the pith of the Aralia papyrifera, a Chinese tree. 
Quekett first discovered that this paper was composed of natural 
parenchymatous tissue by the application of the microscope, and 
disproved the assertion of many who even went so far as to assert that 
they had seen the tissue manufactured as our common paper is made. 
This reference to popular fallacies induced Mr. Kinne, later in 
