469 
General Meeting, Febkuary G, 1895. 
President W. H. Niles in the chair. Tliirtj^-eiglit persons 
present. 
Prof. W. T. Sedgwick spoke on the natural historj^ of drinking 
water and of sewage, and of their purification, giving a detailed 
account of the methods employed and the results obtained in the 
bacteriological and microscopical work under his charge for the 
State Board of Health of Massachusetts. 
General Meeting, February 20, 1895. 
President W. II. Niles in the chair. Two hundred and 
seventy-eight persons present. 
It was announced that the Council had elected Mrs. Katharine 
K. Wheeler, Miss Sophia W. French, and Messrs. G. F. Curtiss 
and C. S. Fellows Corporate Members of the Society. 
Prof. Edmund 1>. Wilson presented to the Society the results 
of his investigations upon the fertilization of the ovum and other 
kai-yokinetic ])henomena in the egg of the sea-urchin, Toxop- 
ncKstes uariegatus^ illustrating the entire series of phenomena by 
means of photographs taken directly from sections of the eggs 
at an initial enlargement of 1,000 diameters and projected upon 
the screen at a much greater magnification by the means of the 
stereopticon. These photographs, of which over fift}^ were 
shown, were taken by Dr. Edward Leaming, of New York, from 
extremely thin sections, hardened in sublimate- acetic, stained 
with iron-haematoxylin, and projected with the Zeiss '2 mm. 
apochromatic oil-immersion. Many of them will be published 
hereafter. The paper dealt mainly with the history of the archo- 
plasmic structures with especial reference to YoVh celebrated 
work on the " Quadrille of the Centres." The general results of 
the investigation are entirely opposed to those of Fol on every 
essential })oint ; for the egg-archoplasm entirely disappears after 
