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MICROSCOPICAL SECTION. 
Annual Meeting, May 18th, 1863. 
A. G. Latham, Esq., in the Chair. 
The Annual Report of the Section for Session 1862-63 
was read, and officers appointed for the ensuing Session. 
A communication on “ The Structure of the Cotton Fibre,” 
by Mr. Charles O’Neill, F.C.S., was then read, in which 
the author states that chloride of zinc, as neutral as it could 
he made by digesting with metallic zinc, and also diluted 
sulphuric acid, would under favourable circumstances exhibit 
all the phenomena described by the author in his first com- 
munication. Chloride of zinc, however, required to be heated 
to its boiling point, and sulphuric acid appeared very capri- 
cious in its action. The appearances produced by these 
re-agents lead him to the same conclusions with regard to the 
structure of cotton ; but he is more decidedly of opinion than 
