Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 60.djvu/336

Rh us astonishing evidence that metals are capable of diffusing into each other, not only when one of them is in the state of fusion, but when both are solid. We learned that if clean surfaces of lead and gold are held together in vacuo at a temperature of only 40° for four days, they will unite firmly and can only be separated by a force equal to one-third of the breaking strain of lead itself. And gold placed at the bottom of a cylinder of lead 70 mm. long thus united with it, will have diffused to the top in notable quantities at the end of three days. Such facts tend to modify our views concerning the mutual relations of the liquid and solid states of matter.

Such are a few samples of the many highly interesting communications we have had in physics and chemistry. On the biological side also, there has been no lack of important work. Of this I may refer to one or two instances.

Professor Schafer has given us an account of the well devised experiments by which he has conclusively established that the spleen is on the one hand capable, like the heart, of independent rhythmical contractions, and, on the other hand, has those contractions controlled by the central nervous system acting through an extraordinary number of efferent channels.

Professor Parmer and Mr. Lloyd-Williams made a very beautiful contribution to biology in the account they gave of their elaborate investigations on the fertilisation and segmentation of the spore in Fucus. Especial interest attached to this communication, from the fact that it described in a vegetable form exactly what had been established by Oscar Hertwig in Echinodermata, viz., that out of the multitude of fertilising elements that surround the female cell, one only enters it and becomes blended with its nucleus.

Lastly, I may mention the very remarkable investigation into the development of the Common Eel, which was described to us a fortnight ago by Professor Grassi, to which I shall have occasion to refer in some detail when speaking of his claims to one of the Society’s medals.

These, as I have before said, are but samples of what we have had before u s; but I think they are in themselves sufficient to justify the statement that, in point of scientific interest, the past year has been in no degree inferior to its predecessors.

The Copley Medal for 1896 is given to Carl Gegenbaur, Professor of Anatomy in Heidelberg, in recognition of his pre-eminence in the science of Comparative Anatomy or Animal Morphology. Professor