188 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



his instruments be placed at each observatory, directed to 

 the four cardinal points, and that by their means observa- 

 tions be taken at regular intervals of the condition of at- 

 mospheric refraction all around the observatory. He be- 

 lieves that by this method information of coming changes of 

 weather can be obtained earlier than by the means now at 

 the disposal of meteorologists. 18 A, August, 1876, 558. 



IMPROVED MODE OP MOUNTING MICEOSCOPIC OBJECTS. 



Professor Hamilton L. Smith, of Hobart College, New York, 

 has communicated to the Journal of the Microscopical Club 

 a new method of making cells of moderate depth, designed 

 for opaque objects, which is at once simple and easily put in 

 practice. The wall of the cell is made of a brass curtain- 

 ring. Out of a sheet of dark-green or black wax a disk is 

 punched, a trifle larger tlian the ring, which is fastened to 

 the centre of the slide by melting. The ring is pressed into 

 this, centred, pressed quite through, and the whole finished 

 with Brunswick black. The object is attached to the wax 

 by previously moistening it with turpentine. The cover is 

 dropped just within the ring, its surface being flush with it, 

 and fastened with the black varnish. The soft and delicate 

 appearance of these wax backgrounds gives an exquisite fin- 

 ish to the slide, the absence of obvious cementing material 

 for the object lending an additional charm. Dr. Smith also 

 uses the sheet wax for cells, cutting rings out of it of any de- 

 sired color, and attaching these both to the slide and cover 

 by slight fusion. The rings are prepared by means of a spe- 

 cially devised press, consisting of a plunger the size of the 

 hole, a centring and a supporting plate. Disks of the sheet 

 wax are dropped in and the hole made in them, the plunger 

 being wetted to prevent adherence. 



CURIOUS JAPANESE COMPASS. 



Captain J. H. Murray, of the screw-steamship ScareshrooJc, 

 obtained from a Japanese pilot at Yokohama, in 1874, a re- 

 markable compass, a description of which has been given to 

 the public by Buckland. The compass was taken from the 

 wreck of a junk which had been lost on the island of Vries, 

 a volcanic island at the entrance to Yokohama, the smoke of 

 which, with the snow-capped peak of Fusiyama, indicates the 



