118 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



MEETING 



Held on the 16th of December, 1908, at 20 Hanover Square, W. r 

 Conrad Beck, Esq., A^ice-President, in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the Meeting of November 18, 1008, were read and 

 confirmed, and were signed by the Chairman. 



The List of Donations to the Society, exclusive of exchanges and 

 reprints, received since the last Meeting, was read, and the thanks of 

 the Society were voted to the Donors : — 



From 

 Dannerth, Frederic, The Methods of Textile Chemistry, i y. Publishers 



(New York and London, 1908) J 



Twelve Slides of Foraminifera from Soundings off the Coast I yr Ernest Heath 



of Somaliland J 



Mr. J. E. Stead, F.R.S., read the following papers :— (1) " On a 

 Workshop Microscope for the Examination of Opaque Objects " ; 

 (2) "On a Simple Method of Illuminating Opaque Objects" — specimens- 

 of the Microscopes and of the electric light fixed to the object-glasses, 

 with portable battery attached, being exhibited in illustration. He also 

 described and illustrated some simple methods of mounting irregularly- 

 shaped pieces of metal, one side of which had been faced for micro- 

 scopical examination. 



Mr. Rosenhain said that it had given him great pleasure to see this 

 very ingenious form of Microscope, which he thought was one which 

 would meet a great want in the workshops for which it was intended. 

 The only danger was, however, that some manufacturers might use it 

 under the impression that they could get the best possible results from 

 it, and would therefore neglect the more important instruments and 

 apparatus specially constructed to obtain them. In the ordinary work- 

 shop they could only look at the surface of things, and as a rule this 

 was not sufficient ; to find out what was the matter with a bar of metal 

 they must cut it in half and examine the section — so that for this 

 reason he imagined that this Microscope would have a somewhat limited 

 use. As regarded the illumination being placed above the objective,, 

 this was of course a very old method, but he thought it would be better 

 to cut off the unsilvered half of the thin cover-glass, as this only served 

 to obstruct a portion of the light. The pill-box arrangement was a 

 very good method of mounting specimens for examination, but it 

 involved using the Microscope in a vertical position, and this was all 



