The Siliceous Fossil Beds of Auvergne employed in the Preparation of Dynamite. By Drs. Leuduger Fortmorel and Paul Petit. A Further Note by the Editor on the Revivification of the Diatoms. On a New Mode of Colouring Microscopic Preparations with a Picro-aniline Solution. By Dr. A. Tafani. On a Photographic Microscope. By Professor C. Fayel. A Review of Professor Eaton's 'Ferns of North America,' and Notice of the Editor's forthcoming Manual of Normal Histology.' The Berlin ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR MIKROSKOPIE for January contains the continuation of Dr. E. Kaiser's article "On the Development and Present Position of Microscopy in Germany;" of the translation of Dr. Pelletan's "Foreign Microscopes," from the "Journal de Micrographie;" also an abstract of Dr. Koch's " Investigation, Preservation, and Photographing of Bacteria." For February:-The continuation of the translation of Dr. Pelletan's "Foreign Microscopes;" "On Micro-photography," by Dr. S. Th. Stein; "On the Collection and Observation of Microscopic Objects on Travels and Excursions," by Dr. E. Bouché (continuation); an abstract of an article by Dr. A. Tschamer "On the Nature of Hooping Cough," and one by Dr. Woodward "On the Use of Artificial Light in Micro-photography." No number of the ARCHIV FÜR MIKROSKOPIE ANATOMIE for 1878 has yet been received. SIEBOLD AND KOLLIKER'S ZEITSCHRIFT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTLICHE ZOOLOGIE for January contains the first part of an article by Bütschli, "On the Flagellata and some Allied Organisms," illustrated with five coloured plates. In the number for March is the fourth part of Schulze's Investigations on the Structure and Development of the Sponges-The Family of the Aplysinida" (with four coloured plates). PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. KING'S COLLEGE, March 6, 1878. H. J. Slack, Esq., President, in the chair. The minutes of the preceding meeting were read and confirmed. The President announced that the first number of their new Journal would be in the hands of the Fellows in the course of a few days, and that he hoped, for a beginning, that it would give satisfaction. A list of donations to the Society during the past month was read by the Secretary, and the thanks of the meeting were voted to the donors. Mr. Charles Stewart gave a description of a supposed new coral, belonging to the genus Stylaster, said to have been obtained from a small island in the vicinity of Tahiti, where it was considered to be exceedingly rare. After pointing out the difference between various genera of corals, Mr. Stewart proceeded to describe and figure the species under notice, and to compare it with other known forms of the same genus. Specimens exhibited under the microscope in the room were objects of much attention at the close of the meeting. The thanks of the meeting were unanimously voted to Mr. Stewart for his communication. (The paper will be found at p. 41.) The President said they had another paper "On a new Operculated Infusorian from New Zealand," by Mr. Hutton. It would perhaps be remembered that in the first volume of the Monthly Microscopical Journal' (p. 289) there was a short paper by Mr. W. S. Kent, "On some new Infusoria from Victoria Docks," in which he described a new species of Cothurnia, which had been discovered by Mr. Reeves, and which possessed a well-developed operculum. Mr. Charles Stewart having drawn in coloured chalks upon the black-board the species described and figured in Mr. Hutton's paper, the President observed that the animal discovered by Mr. Reeves carried the cover up with it when it came out of the cup, thus far resembling that described by Mr. Hutton, but the latter was remarkable for its forked bristles. The President then proposed a vote of thanks to Mr. Hutton for his very interesting communication. A paper by Mr. Adolf Schulze, "On a New and Simple Means of Resolving the finest Balsam mounted Diatom Tests, with special reference to Amphipleura pollucida," was read by the Secretary. The President said that Dr. Dixon had been kind enough to come down to the meeting to exhibit the mode of illumination which was described in the paper, and invited that gentleman to make some observations upon the matter. Dr. Dixon said he had really no remarks to make, for the process was so simple that he had great difficulty in finding anything to say about it. The President inquired if Dr. Dixon found that glycerine would do as well as castor-oil with the Wenham illuminator. Dr. Dixon thought that glycerine would not answer the purpose so well. The greater viscidity of castor-oil allowed a greater range of focus; and for the same reason it would not so readily run off the face of the illuminator. Mr. Stephenson said he had tried this and other immersion plans of illumination, and had resolved without difficulty Amphipleura and other difficult diatoms in balsam. He thought the fact was very often overlooked, that with a dry condenser of the widest angle it was hardly possible to resolve the fine lines of balsam objects; but with an immersion condenser it would be quite possible; and he might say that the resolving power of a Zeiss's immersion objective would be at least 10 per cent. greater on a balsam object than that of a dry lens of 180° on an object in air. Mr. T. Curties said that Mr. West, who had been very successful in producing Lissajou's curves microscopically upon glass, was present, and had brought some specimens, which were exhibited under microscopes in the room. Mr. West said that most persons were familiar with these curves as drawn upon paper, so that he need say very little in the way of describing them. He had been successful in drawing them upon glass upon a very small scale, and he was told that they possessed some value as test objects. He believed he owed much of the success to the excellence of the diamond point which had been supplied to him by Messrs. Beck. The appearance of solidity in many of the figures had attracted attention, and was rather curious. The chief difficulty in exhibiting these objects was in obtaining a proper kind of illumination. In reply to a question from the President, Mr. West stated that these figures were drawn directly upon the glass. The President said that, in returning to the old practice of having tea and coffee at the close of their meetings, they hoped to somewhat increase their social character, and for this purpose they should endeavour to get the business of the evening over by nine o'clock, so as to leave a little time afterwards for conversation and the exhibition of any objects which might be brought by any of the Fellows. He hoped, therefore, that if any Fellow of the Society had objects which he wished to exhibit or to ask questions about, he would bring them down to the meetings. At their scientific evenings they should adhere to the plan which they had found to work so well-that of bringing objects of special interest which could not be seen elsewhere; but the field of research was so great, that it was quite likely that a person well acquainted with one particular branch might find objects of another kind which were unfamiliar to him, and about which he might be glad to have the opinions of others at the ordinary meetings. The following gentlemen were elected Fellows of the Society, viz.-John Davis, Esq.; George Raynor, Esq.; Francis Boughton Kyngdon, Esq.; and the Rev. G. E. Watts, M.A. KING'S COLLEGE, April 3, 1878. H. J. Slack, Esq., President, in the chair. The minutes of the preceding meeting were read and confirmed. The list of donations was announced, and the thanks of the Society returned to the respective donors. The President gave notice that upon the recommendation of Mr. Stephenson, Dr. Matthews, and Mr. Crisp, in accordance with the fifteenth bye-law, and with the approval of the Council, Professor Abbe, of Jena, had been duly nominated an Honorary Fellow of the Society, and that accordingly the Professor's name would be suspended in the usual way and submitted for election at the meeting of the Society in May. Mr. J. W. Stephenson read a paper "On a New Large-angled Immersion Objective without any Adjustment Collar." The President said that Mr. Stephenson had been kind enough to bring down to the meeting the object-glass which he had described in his paper, and another of the same pattern belonging to Mr. Crisp was also in the room, and it would be, no doubt, interesting and useful to examine them after the meeting. Mr. Frank Crisp said that he could bear testimony to two, at any rate, of the advantages of the new objective, viz. the great increase of light, and the facility with which it could be at once adjusted to the object, being without correction collar. It might be interesting to observe, by way of history, that the use of oil in Mr. Stephenson's objective had nothing in common with the use of it for microscopical purposes by Sir David Brewster in 1810-before the application of achromatism to the microscope. His plan was to place the object to be observed at the bottom of a small glass cylinder filled with oil, and the objective was focussed upon the object through the oil. There was thus a convex lens of crown glass, and the oil acted as a concave lens. If the proper curves were taken for the convex lens, there would in the result be (theoretically) an achromatic combination. Dr. Matthews thought that the discrepancy observed as to the tables of refractive indices, to which allusion had been made in the paper, might be due to the age of the oil. All essential oils underwent oxidation, which caused them to become thicker and more refractive, and this might account for the discrepancy. The President inquired which of the essential oils was least subject to this kind of alteration. Dr. Matthews was hardly prepared to say without looking into the subject more closely, but he believed the worst was turpentine. The President said it was clear that the chief consideration in the case of this objective was to get the proper kind of oil. The thanks of the meeting were voted to Mr. Stephenson for his paper. Mr. Frank Crisp read a paper "On the Present Condition of Microscopy in England." The President thought that Mr. Crisp had hardly been quite fair to Dr. Pigott in the course of his observations. Dr. Pigott only wanted to prove that the best object-glasses had some small but important residual error, and could be improved by the use of the means which he proposed. The thanks of the Society were voted to Mr. Crisp for his paper. The President announced that they had received two pamphlets on diatoms from Professor Cleve, and that a number of specimens in illustration had been sent for examination. Dr. Millar had also brought with him a singularly beautiful species of sponge, Acarnus innominatus Gray, and Mr. Curties exhibited a number of specimens of stained tissues. Donations to the Library since February 6, 1878: Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, 1876 and 1877 .. Society. Journals of the Linnean Society Ditto. Brooke's Introduction to Crystallography Catalogue and Description of the Rarities belonging to the Royal Society. By N. Grew, M.D, 1681 Amphitheatrum Zootomicum. By M. Bernardo Valentine, 1720.. Dialogues on the Microscope. By Rev. J. Joyce Two Papers on Diatoms from the Arctic Sea. By Prof. P. S. Cleve John Naish Smart, Esq., and Thomas Bolton, Esq., were elected F. Crisp, Esq. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Author. Fellows of the Society. WALTER W. REEVES, Assist.-Secretary. |