27 Hoorweg, Wied. Ann., II, ix, 552, Apr., 1880; Nature, xxii, 90.

*Matteucci, loc. cit., 200. Marey, loc. cit., 55. M. Foster, op. cit., 474. "If we admit that the energy of muscular contraction (and with that the energy of all other vital manifestations) arises from an explosive decomposition of a complex substance which we may call real protoplasm, and that this complex protoplasm is capable of reconstruction within limits which may be very wide, we acquire a conception of phys iological processes, which if not precise and definite is at least simple and consistent and moreover a first step toward a future molecular physiology."

29 Matteucci, loc. cit., 332. Prevost and Dumas, Schwann, Quoted by Lauder Brunton, Sci. Conf., Biol., 191, 192.

So Matteucci, Op. cit., 332. Brunton, Sci. Conf., 191. Ritter, Thèse de concours, Strasbourg, 1863. Küss, Physiol., 70. Foster, Physiol., 61.

1 Radcliffe, loc. cit., viii, ix, 29, 98. 32 Marey, Op. cit., 39.

Quincke, Nature, xxii, 206, 1880.

33 Rouget, C. R., June, 1867. "The lengthening is produced by a moving cause which is developed in the act of nutrition and is correlative to heat if it be not heat itself." Engelmann, Pflüger's Archiv, vii, 33-71; 155-188; xviii, 1-24. Also Hoffman and Schwalbe's Jahresbericht for 1878, 71, 72. [I am indebted for these views of Eng. elmann to Dr. C. S. Minot of Boston.-B.]

34 Schäfer, Sci. Conf., Biol. 171. Marey, C. R., lxxxix, 203. Levon, Ib., 242. Richet, Ib., 792, 956; Nature, xx, 103, xxi, 76. Couty and Lacerda, C. R., lxxxix, 794, 1034; Nature, xxi, 76.

35 Prout, "This agency is vital and its nature is completely unknown. It is impossi ble to imagine that the agency of the stomach can be chemical." Bridgewater Treatise, 1834, 493. Quoted by Bence Jones, loc. cit., 59.

35 Kühne, Physiologische Chemie, 1866. Haidenhain, Nature, xix, 544. Bernhard. J. Chem. Soc., xxxiv, 82. Defresne, C. R., lxxxix, 737, 1070; J. Chem. Soc., xxxviii, 330. Richet, J. Chem. Soc., xxxiv, 520. Seegen, J. Chem. Soc., xxxvi, 548, 519. Harth, J. Chem. Soc., xxxvi, 6C0. See also Am. Chem. Journal, ii, 204-212.

37 Matteucci, loc. cit. "Thin plates of slate or of baked clay" show the phenomena of osmose (page 35); and those of transpiration take place "with tubes of vein, artery, clay, pasteboard and wood" (page 83). Nasse, J. Chem. Soc., xxxiv, 519. See also Xxxviii, 414.

38 Setschinoff, J. Chem. Soc., xxxiv, 519. See also Grehant, Nature, xviii, 103. Gaule, Nature, xix, 474. Fredericy, The venous blood of the squid (Octopus vulgaris) and lobster (Homarus) contains a colorless albuminoid cupriferous body, which he calls hæmocyanin. In the gills it forms an unstable compound with oxygen, oxy. hæmocyanin, being of a beautiful blue color. The venous blood is colorless; but when the animal respires aerated water, the arterial blood becomes blue. Like hæmoglobin, hæmocyanin breaks up into a proteid substance free from copper, and a cupriferous body analogous to hæmatin. J. Chem. Soc., xxxv, 333; Nature, xxi, 370.

39 Marey, Travaux du Laboratoire, i, 100; ii, 1, 1875.

40 Schmidt, Reichert u. Du Bois Reymond's Archiv, 1861, 545; 1862, 428, 533.

41 Hammarsten, J. Chem. Soc., xxxv, 472; xxxviii, 172; Pflüger's Archiv, xiv, 211; xvii, 413; xviii, 38; xix, 563. See also Gamgee, op. cit., 42-53.

42 Liebreich, Ann. Chem. Pharm., cxxxiv, 29.

43 Gamgee and Blankenhorn, C100 H308 N5 PO35, J. Chem. Soc., xxxvi, 950; Nature, xxi, 387; Zeitschr. phys. Chem., iii, 260, 1879.

44 Radclife, loc. cit., 17. Du Bois Reymond, Gesammelte Abhandl., ii, 232, 1877. Engelmann, Pflüger's Archiv, xv, 211, 1877.

45 Haughton, Anim. Mechanics, 18, Note.

46 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, I, 81, et seq. Clifford, Seeing and Thinking, London, 1879, 12-17. See also Sci. Conf., Biology, 224.

47 Donders, Sci. Conf., Biology, 224. Müller, J., Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen, Coblentz, 1844, i, 581.

48 Helmholtz, Müller's Archiv, 1850, 276; 1852, 199. Du Bois Reymond, Royal Inst. Lecture, 1868. Haughton, Anim. Mechanics, 14. Along the motor nerve of the frog, Helmholtz found the velocity of transmission at the rate of 88 feet per second. Along the sensor nerves of man Schelske found it to be at the rate of 97 feet.

49 Marey, Anim. Mechanism, 41, 43. See also Du Bois Reymond's Lecture, “ On the Time required for the Transmission of Sensation and Volition through the Nerves," Proc. Roy. Inst., 1866. Garver, Am. J. Sci., III, xv. 413, 1878; xx, 189, 1880.

50 Lovering, Proc. A. A. A. S., xxiv, 37, 1876.

51 See Preece's edition of Noad's Electricity, 67. On aërial wires the observed speed has varied from 112,680 miles per second on a wire 179 metres long to 816 miles per second on a cable 1,020 kilometres in length.

52 Weber, Quoted by Radcliffe, loc. cit., 18.

53 Radcliffe, loc. cit., 18.

54 Gaugain, Quoted by Lovering, loc. cit., 37.

53 Marey," We know that electric phenomena are produced in the nerve when it has been excited in a certain way, and that their propagation throughout the nervous cord seems to have precisely the same speed as that of the transference of the nervous energy itself." Anim. Mechanism, 41. Bernstein, Untersuch. ü. d. Erregungsvorgang im Nerven- und Muskel-systeme, 1871, has shown that the negative variation or current of action passes along a muscle or nerve from the spot stimulated in the form of a wave, travelling in the nerve at the same rate as the nervous impulse, in the muscle at the same rate as the contraction. See Foster, op. cit., pp. 77, 105.

56 Clifford, Seeing and Thinking, 26. Du Bois Reymond, Roy. Inst. Lect., 1866. Spencer, Psychology, I, 81.

57 Bert, C. R., lxxxiv, 173. Foster, op. cit., 77, 126, 503.

58 Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, 3d ed., New York, 1872. Maudsley, Body and Mind, London, 1870. Physiology and Pathology of Mind, 2d ed., London, 1858. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, New York, 1871.

59 Maudsley, Body and Mind, 18; Physiology and Pathology, 42, 44, 49, 138. Bain, loc. cit., 12. Clifford, loc. cit., 77. Allman, Nature xx, 393. "Every phenomenon of mind is the result as manifest energy, of some change, molecular, chemical or vital, in the nervous elements of the brain."-" The performance of an idea, like the performance of movement, is a retrograde metamorphosis of the organic element." "Mental action is as surely dependent on the nervous system as the liver function is on the hepatic."- Maudsley. "No fact in our constitution can be considered more certain than this, that the brain is the chief organ of mind and has mind for its principal function."-Bain. "That consciousness is never manifested except in presence of cerebral matter or something like it, there cannot be a question."-Allman.

60 J. S. Lombard, New York Medical Journal, v, 198, June, 1867.

61 Hirsch, Determination telegraphique de la difference de longitude entre les Observatoires de Genève et de Neuchatel. Genève et Bale, 1864. Donders, Reichert ü. Du

Bois Reymond's Archiv, 1868, 657; Sci. Conf., Biol., 225. Haughton, Anim. Mechanics, 15. 62 Donders, Science Conferences, Biology, 226.

63 Donders, Ib., 227.

64 Gaskell, Science Conferences, Biology, 186. Angelo Mosso, "Sopra un nuovo metodo per scrivere i movimenti dei vasi sanguigni nell' uomo;" Atti della Reale Accademia della Scienze di Torino, xi, Nov. 14, 1875.

65 Barnard, Proc. A. A. A. S., xvii, 93, 1868.

GG Clausius, Pogg. Ann., Dec., 1854. Thomson, Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1852; Phil. Mag., 1852; Feb., 1853. Tait. Thermodynamics, Edinburgh, 1868, 29, 58. "No known natural process is exactly reversible and whenever an attempt is made to transform and retransform energy by an imperfect process, part of the energy is necessarily transformed into heat and dissipated, so as to be incapable of further useful transformation. It therefore follows that as energy is constantly in a state of transformation there is a constant degradation of energy to the final unavailable form of uniformly diffused heat; and that this will go on as long as transformations occur, until the whole energy of the universe has taken this final form." Maxwell, Theory of Heat, 188. Balfour Stewart, Conservation of Energy, New York, 1874, 141-154.

67 Hermann, Nature, xix, 551, 1879; Unters. ü. d. Stoffwechsel, Berlin, 1867.

as Berthelot, Essai de Méchanique Chimique fondée sur la Thermochimie, Paris, 1879. C. R.. xc, 1240, 1880. Thomsen, Various papers in Pogg. and Wied. Ann., Ber. Berl. Chem. Ges., etc.

60 J. W. Draper, Jour. Frank. Inst., Sept., 1834; Scientific Memoirs, New York, 1878, 346.

70 Lippmann, Anu. Chim. Phys., V, v, 494, Aug., 1875.

"1 Gore, Proc. Roy. Soc., Apr. 22, 1880; Nature, xxii, 21.

12 Pouillet, Ann. Chim. Phys., II. xx, 141. Becquerel, Ann. Chim. Phys. xxiv, 342. Matteucci, loc. cit., 30. Quincke, Pogg. Ann., cvii, 1, 1859; cx, 38, 1860.

13 Küss, loc. cit., 3.

74 Beale, Protoplasm, or Life, Matter and Mind, London, 1870, 108. "This transpar ent material possesses a remarkable power of movement. It may thus transport itself long distances and extend itself so as to get through pores, holes, and canals too minute to be seen even with the aid of very high powers. There are creatures of exquisite tenuity which are capable of climbing through fluids and probably through the air itself-creatures which climb without muscles, nerves, or limbs-creatures with no mechanism, having no structure; capable when suspended in the medium in which they live, of extending any one part of the pulpy matter of which they consist beyond another part, and of causing the rest to follow."

15 Beale, op. cit., 48.

76 Ranvier, C. R., lxxxix, 318. "Cellular elements possess all the essential vital properties of the complete organism. A primitive fasciculus of striated muscle, which is a cellule, possesses sensibility, motricity and contractility. A gland-cellule (and all cellules are more or less glandular), has the same. Lymphatic cellules digest starch, proteids, and fatty matters which have been absorbed, in consequence of their amoeboid activity."

Allman, G. J., Pres. Linnean Society, Nature, xx, 384, 1879.

7 Beale, Op. cit., 33, 55. "Nothing that lives is alive in every part. **** In man and the higher animals the free portion of the nails and hair, the outer part of the cuticle and a portion of the dental tissues are evidently lifeless. **Of the internal tissues a great part is also in a non-living condition." "This contractile tissue [of the muscle] is not, like the germinal matter which produced it, in a living state." The nerve fibre is composed of formed material." "The non-living tissue which is thus spun off as they [these oval masses of germinal matter] become separated, is the nerve." 79 Beale, Op. cit., 105.

80 Allman, loc. cit., 392. "Irritability, the one great character of all living beings, is not more difficult to be conceived of as a property of matter than the physical phenomena of radiant energy." "There is no greater difficulty in conceiving of contractility as a property of protoplasm, than there is of conceiving of attraction as a property of the magnet."

81 Schützenberger, J. Chem. Soc., xxxvi, 542. Foster, Op. cit., 726-748.

82 Acland, Medicine in Modern Times, 28. "There are virtually no limits to the substances which can be made" [by chemistry]. Odling, Animal Chemistry, 1866, 58. "Already hundreds of organic principles have been built up from their constituent elements and there is now no reason to doubt our capability of producing all organic principles whatsoever in a similar manner."

83 Thos. Graham, "On Liquid Diffusion applied to Analysis." Phil. Trans. 1862. 84 Maudsley, Phys. and Path., 46; Body and Mind, 161. See also Nature, xxi, 586, 1879. 85 Graham, loc. cit.

86 T. Sterry Hunt, Am. J. Sci., II, v, 74, 1848; vii, 109, 1849. Chemical and Geological Essays, 179, 180. See also Dusart, C. R., May, 1861, 974. Schoonbroodt, Ib., May, 1860, 855. Fischer and Boedeker, Ann. Chem. Pharm., cxvii, 111. Wolcott Gibbs, Am. J. Sci., II. xxv, 31, 1858.

87 Allman, Address, Nature, xx, 387.

88 J. W. Draper, Proc. Am. Phil. Soc., May, 1843; Scientific Memoirs, 410; Am. J. Sci., III, iv. 161, Dec., 1872; Nature, xxii, 29, 1880.

89 Vines, Nature, xviii, 110. Boussingault, Ib., xviii, 672. Pringsheim, Ib., xxi, 85, Lankester, Nature, xxi, 557. Boehm, J. Chem. Soc., xxxiv, 84, 162. Macagno, Ib., xxxiv, 90, 162. Corenwinder, Ib., xxxiv, 595; C. R., lxxxvi, 608.

90 Bert, C. R., lxxxvii, 695; J. Chem. Soc., xxxvi, 336.

91 Gautier, Trecul, Chevreul, C. R., lxxxix, 861, 883, 917, 972, 989.

92 Allman, loc. cit., 390.

93 Thistleton Dyer, Sci. Conf., Biology, 162. Kraus, J. Chem. Soc., xxxviii, 57. Wiesner, Nature, xix, 161.

94 Geddes, C. R., lxxxvii, 1095, Dec., 1878; Proc. Roy. Soc., xxviii, 449.

95 Allman, loc cit., 390.

96 Darwin, Insectivorous Plants, New York, 1875, 85-135.

97 Nägeli, Ber. Ak. München, 1878.

98 Wurtz and Bouchut, C. R., lxxxix, 425. Wittmak, J. Chem. Soc., xxxvi, 1048. Peckolt, Ib., Xxxviii, 128. Twenty-eight centigrams of this ferment, which Peckoldt calls papayotin, dissolved twenty centigrams of meat in ten minutes.

99 Bernhard, J. Chem. Soc., xxxiv, 82. Defresne, Ib., xxxviii, 330. Baswitz, Ib., 132. Krauch, Ib., 175.

100 Boussingault, C. R., lxxxvii, 277; J. Chem. Soc., xxxv, 73.

101 Claude Bernard, Phenomènes de la vie commun aux Anim. et Veget., Paris, 1879. 102 Claude Bernard, op. cit.

103 Schützenberger, C. R., lxxxviii, 287, 383, 533. Jamieson, Nature, xviii, 539.

104 Kühne, Lehrbuch der Physiologischen Chemie, Leipzig, 1866, 274. Bleunard, C. R., xc, 612, 1080.

105 Vines, Proc. Roy. Soc. May 13, 1880; Nature, xxii, 91. Barbieri, J. prak. Ch., II, xviii, 102; J. Chem. Soc., xxxvi. 272; xxxviii, 342.

106 Weyl and Bischoff, Ber. Berl. Chem. Ges., xiii, 367.

107 Hammarsten, J. Chem. Soc., xxxv, 472; xxxviii, 172; Pflüger's Archiv, xvii, 413; xviii, 38; xix, 563.

108 Hoppe-Seyler, Medicinisch-Chemische Untersuchungen, 1866, 162.

109 Gamgee, op. cit., 4, "The proteids of the animal body are all derived directly or indirectly from vegetable organisms which possess the power of constructing them out of the comparatively simple chemical compounds which serve as their food. Such a synthesis never takes place in the animal body, though the latter possesses the power of converting any vegetable or animal proteid into the various proteids which are characteristic of its solids and liquids." Foster, op. cit., 474, "The whole secret of life may almost be said to be wrapped up in the occult properties of certain nitrogen compounds." "Pflüger has drawn some very suggestive comparisons between the so-called chemical properties of the cyanogen compounds and the so-called vital properties of protoplasm."

110 Pasteur, C. R., May 3, 1880; Nature, xxii, 48, 1880.

111 Archibald, Nature, xix, 145. Jevons, Ib., 338. Chambers, Ib., xviii, 567, 619. Stewart, Ib., 616; Conservation of Energy, New York, 1874, 98.

112 Jevons, Nature, xix, 33, 97, 196, 588; xviii, 483.

113 W. K. Clifford, "Energy and Force," Nature, xxii, 122, 1880. S. T. Preston, "Physical Aspects of the Vortex Atom Theory," Nature, xxii, 56, 1880.

114 Clifford, Seeing and Thinking, 39. "The luminiferous ether is not a fluid like water, but it is a solid something like a piece of jelly." See also Hall and Harkness, Report on Encke's Comet, Washington, 1871.

115 Thomson, Sir Wm., Phil. Mag., IV, ix, 36-40. Stewart and Tait, The Unseen Universe, 104.

116 J. F. W. Herschel. "Familiar Lectures on Scientific Subjects," London, 1867, 282. 117 Herschel, Op. cit., 282. Sir Wm. Thomson, Phil. Mag., IV, ix, 36. "The mechanical value of a cubic mile of sunlight [at the earth's distance from the sun] is consequently 12050 foot-pounds, equivalent to the work of one horse power for a third of a minute."

118 S. Tolver Preston, Phil. Mag., V, ix, 356, May, 1880.

119 Spinoza, Quoted by Maudsley, Phys. and Path., 170-172.

REPORTS OF COMMITTEES.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE UPON FORESTRY.

Ar the meeting of this Association held at Saratoga, in August last, a Resolution was introduced, and referred by the Standing Committee, to the Committee upon Forestry, in which, in view of the great importance of the matter of Forest-protection and Wood-culture, the desire was expressed, that some Report looking towards definite action be received from this Committee, at the next meeting of the Association.

Your published proceedings show, that two reports have already been made by the Committee upon Forestry; but in order to present the subject in a connected form, we will here briefly review the action that has been taken in pursuance of the object mentioned.

At the session held at Portland, in 1873, it was

"Resolved, That a Committee be appointed by the Association, to memorialize Congress and the several State Legislatures upon the importance of promoting the cultivation of Timber, and the preservation of Forests, and to recommend proper legislation for securing these objects."

It was understood at the time, that an amendment was adopted, directing this Committee to enter into correspondence with Forestry Associations of other countries, with the view of more effectually promoting the interests involved in this subject, but the proceedings as published do not show this fact.

A few days afterwards, a preliminary meeting was held at the house of Mr. George B. Emerson, in Boston, at which a majority of the Committee was present, and an interchange of views was had, as to the best means for carrying into effect the wishes of the Association, in the matter under their charge. As the interests involved concern no particular State, but pervade the whole coun