79 
this respect I can with the utmost confidence pledge myself 
to the correctness of what I have represented in the drawing 
which accompanies this communication. 
I continue to employ the term “ willow-leaf” shaped ob- 
jects, as sufficiently exact to convey to any one a general idea 
of their form, and so to identify them. I might perhaps have 
hit upon some other term that would have been more exact 
and descriptive, and in that respect I was much pleased with 
that which was employed by Mr. Stone, of the Royal Obser- 
vatory, Greenwich, when he first beheld these remarkable 
objects by the aid of the great equatorial refracting telescope 
of the Royal Observatory, on which occasion Mr. Stone 
described them as “ bright rice-like particles.” Perhaps the 
more general term “ lenticular shaped objects” would be 
better than either, as admitting of a certain latitude in respect 
to proportions, that may admit of a classification of any 
variety in these respects that future observations may supply. 
Any observer, who with due means at his command is 
fortunate to obtain a satisfactory view of these truly- remarkable 
structural details of the solar photosphere, can, of course, 
please himself as to the term that appears to him best to 
convey a correct idea of them. But the grand fact of their 
existence is now proved beyond all doubt ; and they, as <f a 
great fact,” will ever remain so long as the sun exists. 
Dr. R. Angus Smith, F.R.S., read a paper “ On some 
Physiological Effects of Carbonic Acid and Ventilation,” of 
which the following is the substance. 
That bad ventilation produces effects which are unplea- 
sant, unwholesome, dangerous, or deadly, according to cir- 
cumstances, has been long known ; it has also been w r ell 
known that the effects of breathing carbonic acid are of a 
similar kind. We have not, however, been able to say 
distinctly that the evil effects of bad ventilation are due 
entirely to carbonic acid. We have had, and not without 
