Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/467

Rh On the 24th we discover that it has suddenly resumed the most distant a.^i. period, viz. 10 a.m., but proceeds regularly to the noon period at the change.

" Although the differences of level do not at full and change ex- ceed 1 foot 4| inches, still I presume that we have sufficient data to establish the fact, — that it is not invariably high ivater at noon (as asserted by Kotzebue, Beechey and others) ; and, further, that we have corresponding nightly periods of high water.

" It is evident that the time of high water at full and change may be assumed as that of noon, because we iiave sufficiently decided changes of level to fix the approximate period of high water.

" It does not appear by these Registers, that any higher levels result from the rollers sent in by the strong sea breezes (as asserted by several writers), but rather the contrary, the highest levels being indicated during the night, when the land breezes prevailed.

" I have great satisfaction in presenting you with these facts, and trust that they may induce others to follow up the same experiments, so as, eventually, to obtain the variations which other seasons may produce.

" I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

" Edward Belcher, Captainr

" Captain Beaufort, R.N,, F.R.S., HydrographerT

2. " On Fissiparous Generation :" by Martin Barry, M.D., F.R.S. L. and Ed.

The author observes that the blood-corpuscle and the germinal vesicle resemble one another in the circumstance of an orifice ex- isting in the centre of the parietal nucleus of both. He pursues the analogy still farther, conceiving that as a substance of some sort is introduced into the ovum through its orifice, which the author terms the point of fecundation, so the corpuscles of the blood may undergo a sort of fecundation through their corresponding orifice ; and also that the blood-corpuscle, like the germinal vesicle, is pro- pagated by self-division of its nucleus ; a mode of propagation which he believes to be common to cells in general. The nucleus of the germinal vesicle, or original parent cell of the ovum, gives origin, by self-division, to two young persistent cells, endowed with qualities resulting from the fecundation of the parent cell ; these two cells being formed by assimilation, out of a great number of minuter cells which had been previously formed. This account of the process, which takes place in the reproduction of the entire or- ganism, explains, according to Dr. Barry, the mysterious reappear- ance of the qualities of both parents in the offspring.

Certain nuclei, which the author has delineated in former papers as being contained within and among the fibres of the tissues, he conceives to be, in like manner, centres of assimilation, from obser- ving that they present the same sort of orifice, that they are repro- duced by self-division, and that they are derived from the original cells of development ; that is, from the nuclei of the corpuscles of the blood. He considers that assimilation of the substance intro-