64 
free passage from the circumference to the centre, and replace 
molecule by molecule the particles of the original vegetable, 
and all its beautiful and delicate structure just as we now see 
it preserved in the stone. However, before dialysis could be 
held to account satisfactorily for the phenomena above stated, 
a good many experiments on recent woods would have to be 
made, and more attention devoted to the subject than he 
(Mr. Binney) would be able to give. 
The specimens ’exhibited were a portion of those described 
in a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of this year. 
MICROSCOPICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SECTIONS. 
December 18 th, 1865. 
J. B. Dancer, F.R.A.S., in the Chair. 
Mr. Parry exhibited some sections of fossil wood and 
Echinus spines, most beautifully cut by Mr. John Butter- 
worth, of Oldham, and presented some of the slides to the 
Section. 
Mr. Parry also presented to the meeting, for distribution 
among the members, mounted slides of the contents of a 
shark’s stomach, from the Madras coast, consisting almost 
entirely of Diatomaceae. 
Mr. Hurst then made a few remarks on late improve- 
ments in illuminating opaque objects under the higher 
powers of the microscope. He said they consisted ot three 
different methods. Firstly, that of H. E. Smith, of Kenyon 
College, America, described in the “ English ” Mechanics’’ 
Magazine of the 20th October, 1865, in an extract from the 
American Journal of Science and Arts. This gentleman 
employed a box, or adaptor, between the object glass and the 
