Plaistow, and R. S. Walker, J.P., were elected Ordinary Members.

A resolution was unanimously carried, on the motion of the Rev. H. H. HIGGINS, Seconded by Dr. NEVINS, that the President be requested to express to Mr. Picton the cordial sympathy of the Society in the recent loss of his wife.

Dr. SHEARER read a brief communication on Sanitary Science as affecting the overcrowding of our large towns and the rates of mortality.

Dr. NEVINS then read a paper "On the Translation οι Διδάσκαλος, πειράω, πειράζω, and το πτερύγιον, in the Authorised Version of the New Testament."*

of

TENTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, March 10th, 1879. JOHN J. DRYSDALE, M.D., M.R.C.S., PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

Arrangements were made for inviting the kindred Societies to hold a third Associated Soirée at the close of the year.

Mr. Jno. W. Hughes was elected an Ordinary Member. Mr. RICHMOND LEIGH, M.R.C.S.E., read a paper "On Change of Climate-Secular, and caused by human agency." +

ELEVENTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, March 24th, 1879.

JOHN J. DRYSDALE, M.D., M.R.C.S., PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

Dr. Alexander was elected an Ordinary Member.

* See page 191. † See page 169.

The Hon. Treasurer was authorised to receive subscriptions towards the Testimonial Fund, now being raised in London for the benefit of the late Professor Clifford's family.

Mr. CHANTRELL referred to the recent death at sea of Captain Perry, Associate, and spoke in high terms of his skill and enthusiasm in the pursuit of microscopical science. Several Members also bore testimony to the zeal and ability of the deceased Associate, and a resolution was unanimously agreed to, that a letter of condolence be sent to his widow. Mr. JOSEPH BOULT read a paper "On the Genesis of the Tides."

TWELFTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, April 7th, 1879.

EDWARD R. RUSSELL, VICE-PRESIDENT, in the Chair.

Dr. NEVINS exhibited a Blind Crayfish, Cambarus pellucidus, caught in the river Echo, Mammoth Caves of Kentucky.

Dr. FRANCIS IMLACH read a paper on "The Levantine Plague-Past and Present."*

THIRTEENTH ORDINARY MEETING.

ROYAL INSTITUTION, April 21st, 1879.

JOHN J. DRYSDALE, M.D., M.R.C.S., President, in the Chair.

Mr. Edward R. Russell was unanimously elected President for the next two Sessions.

* See page 209.

Dr. J. CAMPBELL BROWN communicated a brief paper on "Electric Lighting."

The following communications were then read :

ON EUPHOBERIA AND PERIPATUS.

BY THE REV. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A.

Missing links in the great catenary system of evolution come in very slowly, notwithstanding they have been profusely advertised as desiderata, with the proffer of a niche in the temple of scientific fame as a reward for the finder. Yet public confidence in the theory of development steadily increases, and extends far outside the professorial circle. Confirmatory evidence of a general character abounds; but facts, showing the derivation of a specific form from an ancestral type existing in a previous geological period, are rare; and we know how long Professor Huxley had to wait before he was able to cite even a single instance satisfactory to himself.

In 1871, when my attention was much occupied with making a collection of fossils from the coal-measures at Ravenhead, I was especially struck with the occurrence of fossil remains of no less than six of the great divisions of the animal kingdom-Pisces, Insecta, Myriapoda, Crustacea, Annelida, and Mollusca, all within a few yards of the same spot. It may be noticed that the sub-kingdoms not represented are those of lower organisation, Coelenterata and Protozoa, and that their absence may be due to circumstances unfavourable to their preservation in a recognisable form.

Of course, there was nothing new in finding such an assemblage; but to myself it was one thing to get up from a book the knowledge that it might be so, and quite another thing to pick up with one's own fingers the remains of insects, and the rest, from fragments of the old rock where, perhaps, millions of years ago, they had lived as neighbours. It was, moreover, exceedingly interesting to me to note the

great diversity of animal types existing where an extraordinary abundance of plant remains occurred, all belonging to a comparatively small section of the vegetable kingdom.

The fish remains, though found on the same bank, had been brought to the surface from a lower bed in the middle coal-measures.

Many of the fossils have been already described in various communications to other Societies; but hitherto I have said little about the solitary and somewhat obscure specimen of class Myriapoda found at Ravenhead. It was referred by myself at the time to genus Euphoberia of Woodward, but may belong to the allied genus Xylobius. Both the genera are known as fossils of the coal-measures.

The Hundred-legs, as they are popularly called, are divided into two groups, animal-feeders and vegetablefeeders; to the latter of which probably belonged the Ravenhead fossil. I found it at the base of a great hollow trunk of a Lepidodendron which, in a state of decay, had been filled with sandy mud. It might not, even now, have been worth while to call your attention to this obscure fossil, but for a remarkable investigation made by Mr. Moseley, of the Challenger Expedition, which seems to show that somewhere down amongst these creeping things with many legs, may possibly be found the link which joins the rest of the invertebrate animals with the vast class of insects.

It is strange that there should be more kinds of living things with six legs (Insecta) than there are of kinds with more than six legs, together with those that have fewer than that number, throwing the whole of the species of plants of all kinds into the bargain. That is, that insects should include about half the kinds of living things in the world. Yet this enormous Hexapod class (Insecta) touches the rest of the zoological series almost in a single point. Most of the orders of insects, with their many thousands of species, are

absolutely distinct, except amongst themselves. The small group of wingless insects, some of which are, I think, examples of degeneration, alone has affinities with forms outside the class. It may well be imagined how interesting a problem it is to naturalists to find some form prefiguring, without quite reaching, the insect type. Mr. Moseley thinks he has succeeded in doing this in his investigations of the structure of Peripatus, a form between a Myriapod and a Bristle-worm. A full account, with illustrative plates, may be found in the Transactions of the Royal Society for 1874; and a shorter notice in Mr. Moseley's delighful work, Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, 1879. It is of the nature of such observations to be in a great measure esoteric, by reason of inevitable technicalities; the result being that evolution is commonly regarded as a question of highly speculative philosophy, whilst it should rather be recognised as a more or less reasonable inference from the facts of Nature. It will be my endeavour very briefly to render at least one point in Mr. Moseley's interesting discovery intelligible to those who are not specialists.

Amongst invertebrate animals with jointed limbs. (Arthropoda), except the Crustacea, breathing is effected by a system of air-tubes, trachea, forming a united respiratory apparatus. Now, as these air-tubes do not exist at all in other sub-kingdoms, and as in all the known animals provided with them the air-tubes are found in a stage considerably advanced towards perfection, it was an enquiry of much interest, what would probably be the form in which the airtubes would first make their appearance; and it was suggested that they would probably first occur as little detached sprays of tubes, each in communication with the outward air, and diffused generally over the surface of the animal, under the skin. But no such structure was known to exist in any animal. Some worms and leeches have, indeed, little