76 
DR. GWYN JEFFREYS. 
Ill many genera of Confer void Algie, and indeed in most, 
vegetation goes on at the apex, so that the basal cells are the 
oldest, and the terminal cells the youngest ; the thread being 
increased in length by continued growth and subdivision of 
the terminal cell, but in (Edorjonium this is not the case, since 
the intermediate cells possess the power of dividing and 
increasing by interposing a new cell, hence old and new cells 
will alternate. When a cell has reached maturity, and is 
about to divide, a little circular line is seen near its upper 
end. Gradually this line widens, and then it is seen that the 
wall of the mother cell has divided all round, and the cell 
above it is being slowly raised by the growth of a new cell, a 
daughter cell, arising, as it were, out of the apex of the 
mother cell, and carrying upwards the first streak, or cap, 
which was left by the breaking away of the wall of the mother 
cell. In this manner the new cell soon attains a length equal 
to that of the mother cell from whence it sprung. This 
accounts for the single line, which crosses just below the 
apex of some of the cells. When this young cell is matured 
it becomes in turn a mother cell, the splitting round is 
repeated, a second streak or line is formed just below the 
first, indicating that a second cap is being carried upwards, 
and so on until as many as four, five, or six striae or caps are 
formed, which indicate that four, five, or six cells have been 
successively formed, the last one carrying up on its apex, one 
within the other, all the caps left by the circumscissile 
division of eacli successive cell, the number of caps or striae 
corresponding to the number of cells produced consecutively 
immediately beneath the gaps. By careful observation it will 
be seen that the youngest cells are narrower than the parent 
cells by the thickness of the cell wall. 
Thus much, then, for the vegetative growth of the filament 
which accounts for the striae at the apices of many of the cells. 
(To be continued.) 
DR. J. GWYN JEFFREYS. 
On tlie 24th of January last there passed away, after a long and 
active life, the veteran concliologist, Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys. He 
belonged to a school of bygone scientists, whose honoured names live 
in the remembrance of the present generation by their works — 
beautiful alike in matter and production—and of daily reference by 
the student and worker. Retiring from the Bar about 1857, he was 
enabled to follow up his favourite pursuit of science, which he did 
with unflagging vigour until the day before he was seized with the 
illness which terminated his active and honourable career. 
It would be a task outside the scope of this short notice—dictated, 
as it is, by a feeling of regard for the late Doctor—to enumerate the 
