crowded dwellings, prevailed generally among the working classes in all parts of the kingdom; and that whilst these diseases could be abated by improved sanitary conditions, they were not removed by high wages and abundant food if sanitary conditions were absent. They also pointed out that owing to the defective water-supply cleanly habits were impossible.

In illustration of the loss caused to the nation by these preventable diseases, they mentioned that out of 43,000 widows and 112,000 destitute orphans relieved from the poor-rates, the greater number had lost their husbands or fathers from preventable diseases; and that the youthful population of either sex brought up in crowded, unwholesome dwellings, and under the adverse circumstances described, were deficient in physical strength and moral conduct, and grew up improvident, reckless, and intemperate, caring for nothing but sensual gratification. They pointed out that the expenses of local public works were unequally and unfairly assessed, oppressively and uneconomically collected by separate collections, and wastefully expended by unskilled and irresponsible officers, and that the existing law for the protection of the public health, and the constitutional machinery for its execution, such as the Courts Leet, have fallen into desuetude.

The Commission then went on to state the conditions required for improving the sanitary condition of the labouring classes.

This report was thus one of the early fruits of the system of vital statistics which commenced at the accession of the Queen, under the able supervision of our late eminent member, Dr. Farr. The report itself was drawn up by another eminent member of this Society, Mr. Edwin Chadwick, C.B. It is a remarkable tribute to the foresight of Mr. Chadwick that, during the last half-century, almost all the sanitary principles laid down in the report have been recognised by the Legislature as necessary to the welfare of the community, and have become matters of ordinary practice. The conclusions of the Poor-Law Commissioners, and the general interest awakened in the subject, led to various sanitary investigations, both by Royal Commissions and Committees of the Houses of Parliament.

When the Registration Act came into operation, an epidemic of small-pox was advancing over this island. It attained its maximum in the spring of 1838, and destroyed 30,819 persons. Dr. Farr mentions that vaccination protected a part of the population, but that there is reason to believe that inoculation led to the extension of the epidemic by diffusing the infection artificially. In 1840 and 1841, the first Vaccination Acts were passed. These prohibited inoculation, and empowered the Guardians to provide means for vaccination, and to charge the expense on the rates; and enacted that vaccination was not to be considered parochial relief, thus recognising the fact that the community should bear the cost of measures which are found necessary to secure the public health. It was not, however, till 1853 that vaccination was made compulsory.

The reports of the various Commissions and Committees of Parliament which inquired into the condition of the people showed the great importance of cleanliness of person and cloth ing to health, and the difficulties which the poor suffered in respect of it; and in 1844, private associations, not only in London, but in Manchester, Liverpool, and other large towns, were formed to encourage cleanliness amongst the working classes by establishing public baths and wash-houses, and lend. ing out pails, brushes, and whitewash to the poor to cleanse their dwellings; and in 1846, the Bishop of London brought in a general Act empowering local authorities to establish public baths and wash-houses, the expense of which was to be defrayed out of the rates.

As regards general sanitary legislation, it is probable that the recommendations in the Poor-Law Commissioners' report and in the reports of these several Royal Commissions and Committees of the Houses of Parliament, would have remained long in abeyance had it not happened that the nation was threatened with an epidemic of cholera.

In 1832-33, the cholera had visited our shores and snatched 16,437 victims. It again appeared in Lordon on September 22, 1848, and in Edinburgh in the beginning of October, 1848. So long as the insanitary conditions remain, epidemics invariably haunt the same localities, and the first appearance of the cholera in Bermondsey in 1848 was close to the same ditch in which the earliest fatal cases occurred in 1832. The first case of cholera that occurred in the town of Leith took place in the same house and within a few feet of the very spot from whence the previous epidemic of 1832 commenced its course. On its

reappearance in 1848 in the town of Pollockshaws, it snatched its first victim from the same room and the very bed in which it broke out in 1832. It did not, however, attain its full intensity until 1849, and it ceased on December 22, 1849. Its progress fully corroborated the report of the Poor-Law Commissioners. It attacked those towns and houses which offered to it the best inducements to visit them, in their filth, decaying refuse, crowded and dirty population, bad water, damp polluted subsoil, or any other of those conditions which lead to bad health in a population, and which, when cholera is absent, afford an evidence of their existence by the prevalence of scarlet fever, small-pox, typhoid and other fevers, measles, whooping-cough, &c. The total number of victims was 53,293.

The near approach of the cholera led Parliament, in 1848, to the conclusion that

"Further and more effectual provision ought to be made for improving the sanitary condition of towns and populous places in England and Wales, and it is expedient that the supply of water to such towns and places, and the sewerage, drainage, cleansing, and paving thereof, should, as far as practicable, be placed under one and the same local management and control, subject to general supervision."

An Act was passed creating a General Board of Health. The main feature of this Act was, that when the Registrar-General's returns showed that the number of deaths on an average of the preceding seven years exceeded 23 per 1000, the General Board of Health were empowered to send an inspector to make a public inquiry as to the sewerage, drainage, water supply, burial-grounds, number and sanitary condition of inhabitants, and local Sanitary Acts in force; also as to natural drainage areas, the existing local boundaries, and whether others might be advantageously adopted. The General Board were empowered to issue provisional orders, creating a system of local administration by means of Local Boards of Health, consisting partly of municipal authorities and partly of elected members. These Local Boards were empowered to appoint necessary officers, including medical officers of health, surveyors, and inspectors of nuisances. The public sewers were vested in the Local Board, and they were to maintain, cleanse, and regulate the use of sewers. All houses rebuilt were required to be provided with drains approved by the surveyor; and, before any new house was commenced, the levels of the cellars or lowest floors, and the position and character of the drains or cesspools, were to be approved by the surveyor. The occupation of cellars as dwellings was prohibited. Water-closets, or privies, and ash-pits were to be provided to all houses and workshops. The Local Board was also required to manage, repair, and clean the streets, and to provide for removal of refuse. They were to abate nuisances, regulate slaughter-houses, register and make by-laws to regulate common lodging-houses. local authorities were empowered to provide public recreationgrounds, and to provide a water supply, except where a water company would supply on reasonable terms. They were also to provide mortuaries; to obtain power to close burial-grounds which they considered to be unhealthy, and to open new ones.

The

The Local Boards were empowered to make by-laws and impose penalties, subject to confirmation by the Secretary of State, and to levy rates, to mortgage the rates, and to borrow from the Public Works Loan Commission. The Act also provided for sewers, wells, pumps, &c., to be made where desired by the inhabitants in parishes containing less than 2000 persons. The metropolis was exempted from the operation of this Act.

The General Board of Health came into existence in 1848, just before the outbreak of cholera in this country, and it took measures at once to check the disease, and proclaimed the principles upon which the preventive and other measures for meeting the epidemic ought to be conducted. Amongst these measures, probably the one which had the greatest effect in promoting subsequently a general feeling of the necessity for sanitary improvements, and which awoke in the nation the needs of moral improvement, was that requiring house-to-house visitation, and the cleansing of the houses and streets, and obtaining an adequate water supply.

This epidemic also brought into notice the necessity of appointing efficient medical officers to supervise the sanitary condition of the different towns and districts.

Further Acts for regulating the public health were passed in 1858, 1861, and subsequent years; and all their provisions were embodied in a General Act in 1875, from the operation of which the metropolis was exempted. Subsidiary to these may be mentioned the Acts regulating rural water supply, the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Acts, or what have been more recently termed the housing of the working classes, and also Acts for checking the adulteration of food, as well as other Acts relating to the diseases of animals. This general legislation has been largely supplemented by by-laws issued by local authorities, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, and by means of Local Acts obtained by various towns.

The Act of 1848 initiated the system which subsequent legislation has supplemented, under which many towns and rural districts have borrowed money for and have executed public sanitary works during the last forty years. The importance of this measure may be gauged by the fact that the money borrowed since that time for sanitary works, and not yet repaid, amounts to over 130,000,000/, in addition to very large sums spent out of current rates; and in addition to an enormous private expenditure, which is beyond the reach of calculation, for the reconstruction of house drains. This legislation and expenditure have caused a complete revolution in that branch of engineering science connected with public health, viz. drainage and water supply, and has gradually established it on a scientific basis.

Modern sewerage may be said to date from the introduction of oval forms in sewers, by Mr. Roe and Mr. Phillips, under the Commissioners of Sewers, in 1845; the construction of impervious clay pipes for smaller drains; the recognition of the necessity that sewers and drains should be water-tight and selfcleansing; and that junctions should be carefully made. Ventilation of the sewers followed a severe outbreak of typhoid fever, consequent upon the construction of a new unventilated sewer at Croydon. In 1849-50, Sir Robert Rawlinson introduced the system of constructing sewers and drains in right lines from point to point, with lamp-holes or man-holes at every change of direction or of gradient; this is now the recognised method of construction among all English-speaking races. The reconstruction of the sewers led to a reform in house drainage, of which the leading characteristics are imperviousness of material, free aeration, and facility of inspection at all points.

The disposal of water-carried sewage began by leading to the widespread pollution of our streams and rivers, and the serious injury of the sea beach in inany of our seaside health resorts. The problem was complicated by the doctrine that as the pollution was caused by a vast amount of fertilising matter, large profits might be made out of its removal. But those who made this assertion generally overlooked the fact that the conveyance of the refuse would have to be paid for just like any other work. The subject has been repeatedly discussed in this hall, but it is far too extensive for me to enter into here.

Let us now turn from the community generally to the metropolis, which was excluded from the operation of the Sanitary Acts of 1848 and 1875. The population of London was 960,000 in 1801. At the Queen's accession it had more than doubled, and amounted to about 1,900,000. At the present time it is very nearly 4,000,000. The metropolis has, from its situation, all the attributes of a healthy city. It lies in a valley through the centre of which the Thames sweeps from west to east, and the winds rushing over its water afford a continuous supply of fresh air to the middle of the City. But the advantages of this situation had been largely frustrated by the unopposed efforts of the landowners to accumulate the greatest possible number of houses on the least possible space, by which the free circulation of air was impeded in some districts, and the families of artisans were crowded in small, low, close rooms, without space for the safe retention of refuse; and there was no adequate machinery for its rapid removal.

London is now, undoubtedly, the finest capital in the world. It was far from being so at the beginning of the Queen's reign. Among other things, there were deplorable deficiencies in the sewerage. The drainage found its way through badly-formed, leaky drains into the old water-courses, and thence to the river; the sewage was floated up and down by the tide in the heart of London, until it was deposited on the shore at low water in fetid banks, which covered the foreshore from Blackfriars to Battersea.

One of the early effects on the metropolis of the report of the Poor-Law Commission, was a Metropolitan Building Act for improvement of drainage, and for securing a sufficient width of streets and alleys, and due ventilation of buildings, and to regulate the construction of buildings, authorising the vestries to appoint district surveyors.

Mr. Phillips is at present employed in superintending the reconstruction of the drainage of the Houses of Parliament.

In 1846, a new Commission of Sewers was formed, and charged with the duty of revising the metropolitan drainage. The Commissioners applied for an Ordnance survey of the metropolis, which was commenced in 1847.

The water supply of London was furnished by water companies, who trenched upon each other's districts. Its volume may be assumed, at the Queen's accession, to have been about 36,000,000 gallons per twenty-four hours. It was estimated by Mr. Wicksteed, in 1845, at 45,000,000 gallons. Some was derived from the tidal part of the Thames, and was more or less filtered; but, from its doubtful purity, pumps in surface-wells, often adjacent to charchyards, were frequently preferred for drinking-water. In many of the courts and smaller streets water was obtained only from a small stand-pipe, where the water was turned on for an hour or less daily, when the inhabitants stood around waiting with whatever vessels they might have at hand for their turn to procure a portion of a miserably scanty supply, which was then stored for use in probably the only room occupied by a whole family. Amongst the poorer classes, almost the only receptacles that existed were wooden butts, frequently in a state of decay; and, as they were for the most part without covers, the water was placed under favourable circumstances for the reception of dirt and refuse and for the development of animal and vegetable growths.

After the cholera epidemic, the question of the purity and quantity of the water supply attracted notice; and in 1852, Parliament passed an Act forbidding the supply of water from the tidal part of the Thames or its tributaries, and requiring all river water to be filtered and to be kept covered after filtration; also requiring a constant service when demanded by four-fifths of the houses in a district. In 1858, the average daily supply had risen to 75,000,000 gallons. In 1871, another general Act was passed, to make further provisions for securing to the metropolis a constant supply of pure water; this Act defined the sources of supply of the several companies, and required, amongst other matters, efficient filtration, and the application of tests of purity.

The amount of water delivered into London by the water companies for September last was 178,196,597 gallons in twentyfour hours, of which about 90,000,000 gallons came from the Thames above Teddington Lock; its purity is ascertained by continual analysis; and it may now be said that the water supplied to London rivals that of any other city in purity.

It was not till 1852 that the Secretary of State was authorised to prohibit burials within the metropolis.

A new era in metropolitan sanitation was inaugurated in 1855. In that year the Metropolitan Board of Works was created. In this body was vested the main drainage of the metropolis, but the charge of the subsidiary parish sewers was left to the vestries, who were also charged with the care of the streets and roads, the Metropolitan Roads Commission being abolished, and all duties of lighting, control of removal of refuse, &c., were placed on the vestries.

Thus the formation of this new Board was somewhat of a retrogade movement, because the concentration of functions, which had been commenced under the Metropolitan Roads Commission and Metropolitan Sewers Commission, instead of being strengthened in the new Board, was abandoned, and something approaching chaos was introduced. This Board has, however, by degrees had remitted to it the care of London improvements, and certain other general municipal functions, as well as power to levy general rates. The City retained its individuality, excepting as to the main sewers, and effected improvements and opened out thoroughfares in the part under its jurisdiction. The improvements in the other parts of London are mainly due to the action of the Metropolitan Board of Works. Great alterations have taken place in our thoroughfares. Many of those large tracts of London which occupied by dwellings of the most wretched description, are now traversed by wide thoroughfares, and covered by artisans' dwellings erected by private enterprise. But there is no diminution of the rate at which the vast aggregation of population in London still continues to progress; and, unfortunately, many of the wretched crowded dwellings still remain, where those born in close rooms, brought up in narrow streets, and early made familiar with vice, are deteriorated in physique, and grow poorer from inability to work.

were

The reconstruction of the drains, the removal of the sewage from the midst of the population, the opening out of thoroughfares so as to admit ventilation into crowded districts, have all tended to improve the sanitary condition of London.

heat expanded the lower atmosphere, the upper cloud-stratum would be lifted, flattened, and broken into patches, the result being a mackerel sky. Should, however, the expansion in the lower atmosphere take place very slowly, it was possible that the cloud, though thinned, would remain unbroken. Rapid motion of the atmosphere would elongate the cloud in the direction of motion; and, if accompanied by expansion from below, would rupture the cloud into ribs or bars at right angles to the current. If the mass of the cloud were stationary or moving slowly, prominent parts might be drawn out into " mares'-tails."

FURTHER EXPERIMENTS ON FLAME IN my former paper, published in NATURE, vol. xxxi. p. 272, I showed that there are two classes of continuous spectra, viz. those due to an incandescent precipitate, in which case the flame has the power of reflecting and polarising light; and, secondly, flames that possess no reflecting power, but give a soft continuous spectrum without maxima or minima.

Of this second class is carbonic oxide, which gives, at normal pressures, a fairly bright, and at increased pressure, according to Dr. Frankland, a very bright, continuous spectrum. I have observed its spectrum recently under reduced pressure, using an apparatus similar to that described by Dr. Frankland in his Experimental Researches," p. 884 et seq.

I had considerable difficulty at first in keeping the flame alight at anything like low pressures, and finally adopted a glass jet, of a trumpet shape, increasing very gradually from I millimetre to 3 millimetres in diameter, the flame being farther shielded from draughts by a wide disk of cork 10 millimetres below the mouth of the jet.

Experiment 1.-Carbonic oxide was burnt in oxygen. The flame was densest close to the jet, and diminished in brightness

D

Experiment 2.-Having the apparatus ready, I repeated Dr. Frankland's experiment of burning coal-gas in air under reduced pressure. He says that "finally, at 6 inches pressure, the last trace of yellow disappears from the summit of the flame, leaving the latter an almost perfect globe of a peculiar greenishblue tint."

He used a jet contracted at the mouth to 15 millimetres. With my much wider trumpet-shaped jet, by turning on more gas I could produce smoke at 160 millimetres so as to blacken the glass chimney. At 120 millimetres the light was noticeably less vivid, the flame having a diluted appearance, but the spectrum showed the usual carbon lines much more sharply defined, the mantles being very much thicker than at normal pressure. With this exception there was no difference caused by the reduction of the pressure to 60 millimetres, and even then, on turning up the gas a little, the ellipsoidal flame became pointed, and the yellow light, giving the incandescence spectrum, re-appeared in the tip of it. It is evident that the trumpet-shaped jet allows carbon to be precipitated in the flame at much lower pressures than the contracted jet. In the same way alcohol heated in a bulb tube burns from the mouth of it with a bright and even smoky flame, whereas it burns from a wick with a blue one.

One phenomenon observed by Dr. Frankland I was disappointed not to see. He says: "Just before the disappearance of the yellow portion of the flame there comes into view a splendid halo of pinkish light forming a shell half an inch thick around the blue-green nucleus; . . . the colour of this luminous shell closely resembles that first noticed by Gassiot in the stratified electrical discharge passing through a nearly vacuous tube containing a trace of nitrogen." He does not speak of having used the spectroscope to determine the nature of this pink glow. I went considerably below the lowest pressure mentioned in his paper, viz. 4'6 inches, but entirely failed to reproduce it. But I have noticed that very small flames from capillary tubes, observed under a power of 100 in the microscope, are sometimes tinged with rose-colour in the outer mantle, from a very faint trace of sodium orange light mingling with the blue of the soft outer mantle; and I think that the jet he used or the glass chimney may have been sufficiently heated to give a rosy tinge to the flame.

One other point I would call attention to. The appearance of the gas-flame at low pressures is precisely like that of a very small gas-flame under the microscope. The inner mantle appears to be bordered with bright green light, due to the principal green band of the carbon spectrum extending slightly beyond the others. Beyond this, again, comes a zone of violet light due to the band in the violet, and in most cases this extends nearly, if not quite, to the outer mantle. At ordinary pressures this can only be seen with a magnifying-glass, except with a special burner; but the in vacuo flame is, as it were, magnified as to its structure, which is thus visible to the naked eye. This fact suggests that flames may in a sense obey Boyle's law, i.e. that the space required for complete combustion under given conditions varies inversely as the pressure. I am continuing my experiments. GEORGE J. BURCH

SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES

LONDON

Royal Society, November 18.-"The Coefficient of Viscosity of Air. Appendix." By Herbert Tomlinson, B.A. Communicated by Prof. G. G. Stokes, P. R.S.

In the previous experiments by the author on this subject, the coefficient of viscosity of air was determined from observations of the logarithmic decrement of amplitude of a torsionally vibrating wire, the lower extremity of which was soldered to the centre of a horizontal bar. From the bar were suspended vertically and at equal distances from the wire a pair of cylinders, or a pair of spheres. The distances of the cylinders or spheres from the wire were such that the main part of the loss of energy resulting from the friction of the air may be characterised as being due to the pushing of the air.

Acting on a suggestion of Prof. Stokes, the author proceeded to determine the coefficient of viscosity of air by suspending a hollow paper cylinder about 2 feet in length and half a foot in diameter, so that its axis should coincide as to its direction with the axis of rotation. The cylinder was supported by a light hollow horizontal bar, about 7 inches in length, to the centre of which the vertically suspended wire was soldered. The wire

In these experiments the loss of energy arising from the friction of the air may be characterised as being due to the dragging of the air, and it is very remarkable that there should be such close agreement in the values of u as determined by this and the previous methods. The mean value of the coefficient of viscosity of air obtained by this method is 0.00017746 at a temperature of 12° 650 C., and the mean value deduced from the previous experiments when proper correction has been made for the rotation of the spheres and cylinders about their axes is 0.00017711 at a temperature of 11° 79 C.

November 25.-" On the Structure and Life-History of Entyloma Ranunculi (Bonorden)." By H. Marshall Ward, M.A., F.L.S., Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, and Professor of Botany in the Forestry School, Royal Indian College, Cooper's Hill.

The author found plants of Ranunculus Ficaria, the leaves of which were spotted with white patches; the white patches spread from leaf to leaf, and the disease assumed the nature of an epidemic over a given area under examination. The rise, progress, and climax of the disease were observed both on isolated plants and in the open country, and the nature of the lesions in the leaves was made out. Some plants were found to succumb more rapidly; the evidence supporting this conclusion was given, and the circumstances to which the differences are due explained.

The white disease-spots contain the mycelium of Entyloma Ranunculi, and the resting-spores of this fungus (one of the Ustilagineæ) were observed on it. The mycelium is very delicate and septate, and runs in the middle lamellæ between contiguous cells. The white powder on the outside of the disease-spot consists of conidia, very like those of some Ascomycetes. The author examined the anatomical connection between the conidia and the resting-spores, and showed that the conidia really belong to the same mycelium-in other words, the conidia are a second kind of spore of the Entyloma.

Even more important is the germination of these conidia: this has not been before observed in any Entyloma. The germination was traced step by step, not only on glass slips, but also on the living plant. Artificial infections were made, and it was shown how the germinal hyphæ entered the stomata, and produced a mycelium exactly like that in the disease-spots first investigated; not only so, but the resting-spores of the Entyloma were produced on this mycelium, thus placing beyond doubt the connection of the two spores. The time occupied in infection was also determined in many cases. Moreover, all the symptoms of the disease produced by infection with the conidia were as before. The paper was illustrated by diagrams, and specimens of the fungus were exhibited under the microscope.

Mathematical Society, December 9.-Sir J. Cockle, F.R.S., President, in the chair. Prof. D. Y. Kikuchi, of Tokio, was elected a Member, and Mr. F. S. Macaulay admitted into the Society. The following communications were made :-The linear partial differential equations satisfied by pure ternary reciprocants, by E. B. Elliott. Circular notes, by R. Tucker. The problem of the duration of play, by Capt. Macmahon, R.A.-Note on two annihilators in the theory of elliptic functions, by J. Griffiths. Mr. Hammond spoke upon the subject of Capt. Macmahon's communication at the November meeting.

Linnean Society, December 2. - William Carruthers, F.R.S., President, in the chair. -The following gentlemen were elected Fellows of the Society, Messrs. J. W. Willis Bund, Arthur Dendy, Anthony Gepp, Tokutaro Ito, F. Krause, F. M. Lascelles, Fred Sander, R. von Lendenfeld, John Samson, Harry S. Burton, A. W. Sutton, and Chas. W. Wilson; afterwards Mr. Geo. Sim was elected an Associate. -The President read a letter from the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, concerning the death of his old and respected co-worker on fungi, Mr. C. E. Broome. Mr. G. Maw exhibited ten photos of living Narcissi, made in the Riviera in 1870. He afterwards gave a short account of the North African and South Spanish Narcissi as

papyraccus extends as far as Fez, in Morocco; south of that N. sub-Broussoniti takes its place, and is found from Saffi to Mogador. Incidental allusion was made to the smallest of the white forms of N. Tazzetta in the Island of "Teneriffe. Of the autumnal species, reference was made to N. nudiflorus, which had been lost sight of for half a century, but was re-discovered by Mr. Maw in 1883 in the neighbourhood of Gibraltar, and again recently near Tangier. A hybrid between N. viridiflorus and N. serotinus was found by him close to Gibraltar, and a series of hybrids between N. viridiflorus and N. elegans were got in North Morocco. Mr. Maw stated that N. serotinus was limited to the south of Spain, and N. elegans to the Morocco coast, the latter plant bearing true leaves. He mentioned the abundance in flower and fruit of a small Amaryllid, Tapeinanthus humilis, Herbert, as occurring eight miles south of Tangier.Dr. Day read a paper on the Lochleven trout, which is the form that has been utilised by Sir James Maitland at Howietoun, where the elevation is similar to that of their original home, distant about 25 miles. These fish are known by their numerous cæcal appendages, and up to their fourth or fifth year they are of a silvery gray, with black, but no red, spots. Subsequently they become of a golden purple with numerous black and red spots. Undergrown ones take on the colour of the burn trout. Remove these fish to a new locality, and they assume the form and colour of the indigenous trout. In 1883 a salmon parr and Lochleven trout were crossed, and the young have assumed the red adipose dorsal fin, and the white-edged margins to the dorsal and ventral, also the orange edges to both sides of the caudal-all colours found in the brook trout, but not in the salmon or Lochleven trout. The maxilla in this form not extending to behind the eye, the absence of a knob on the lower jaw in old breeding males and the difference in the fins from those of Salmo fario were shown to have been erroneous statements.A paper was read on Hermann's "Ceylon Herbarium" and Linnæus's "Flora Zeylanica," by Dr. Henry Trimen. The collection of dried plants and the drawings of living ones made in Ceylon by Paul Hermann in the latter half of the seventeenth century possess a special interest as being the first important instalment of material towards a knowledge of the botany of the East Indies; but Hermann himself, who died in 1695, published very little of this material. Some of his manuscripts were subsequently printed by W. Sherard, including a catalogue of the herbarium, as then existing, under the title of "Museum Zeylanica" (1717). This herbarium was lost sight of till 1744, when it was recognised by Linnæus in a collection sent to him from Copenhagen. After two years work at it, Linnæus produced in 1747 his "Flora Zeylanica," in which all the plants that he could determine are arranged under his genera. At that date Linnæus had not initiated his binomial system of nomenclature; but in his subsequent systematic works he quoted the numbers of the "Flora Zeylanica," and thus Hermann's specimens became the types of a number of Linnæus's species, for the most part additional to those in his own herbarium in the possession of the Linnean Society.

Zoological Society, December 7.-Prof. W. H. Flower, F.R.S., President, in the chair. Prof. Bell exhibited and made remarks on a specimen of a rare Entozoon (Tania nana) from the human subject.-Mr. Tegetmeier exhibited and made remarks on a pair of antlers of a Deer, said to have been recently obtained in the Galtee Mountains in Ireland. They appeared to be those of the Elk (Alces machlis). -Mr. Frank E. Beddard read a paper on the development and structure of the ovum in the Dipnoan fishes. The present communication was a continuation of a research into the structure of the ovary in Protopterus. The author, besides being able to give a more complete account of the ovarian ova of Protopterus, was also able to supplement this account with some further notes respecting the structures observed in the ovary of Ceratodus. Mr. A. SmithWoodward read a paper on the anatomy and systematic position of the Liassic Selachian, Squaloraja polyspondyla. After a brief notice of previous researches, the author attempted an almost complete description of the skeletal parts of Squaloraja, as revealed by a fine series of fossils in the British Museum. He confirmed Davies's determination of the absence of the cephalic spine in certain individuals (presumably females), and added further evidence of its prehensile character, suggesting also that the various detached examples afforded indications of one or more new species. The author concluded with some general