500 



Journal of Applied Microscopy. 



unnumbered, unrecorded specimens. This is wholly wrong, and its prevalence 

 is largely due to lack of knowledge. Any method is better than no method; 

 were it otherwise, we might not be emboldened to present our " one way." 

 Cataloguing and recording seems to be a necessary preliminary to subsequent 

 microscopic work in all of the biologic sciences alike, so this " one way " may 

 possibly be entitled to a place in a microscopical journal. 



Before the writer had reached senior standing he found himself possessed of 

 several hundred specimens, besides slides, negatives and note-books, etc. This 

 accumulation, much of it of value to the owner, was but prophetic of still greater 

 collections and increasing trouble. A system was straightway decided upon, and 

 however crude or cumbersome, it serves the purpose well, and has been obsti- 

 nately adhered to, be it good or bad. It is a number which does not repeat, 

 which is not forgotten, which is at once a serial number and a date, and viewed 

 as a whole is an arbitrary number. It is simply the day, month, and year 

 expressed numerically, and boxed in, like a diamond number, so as to preclude 

 the possibility of error in reading it. If an object is found, a memorandum 

 written, an experiment begun, a note-book started, a plate exposed, a book or 

 piece of apparatus added to the shelf, the first thing is to write this date number 

 upon it. Great importance has always been attached to the habitual practice of 

 writing a date upon every transaction, however trifling. It is often the one key 

 to the whole situation. This number proves to be both a date and a catalogue 

 number. The object, whatever it may be, which is obtained, say the first of June, 

 1899, is numbered 1 |l i 6 99 the first day, of the sixth month, of 1899, 



and so on for each accession of that particular 

 day. If a slide is ground, it may look, when done and catalogued and cross- 

 referenced, somewhat like the cut, Fig. 1. It may not beautify the slide, but it 



See /^oTe ^oo/r 



Stru cture Ur/^ 

 Sff 



Fig. 1. 



will tell where to find facts about it, and that is the important matter. 



It is a long number, you say, and so it is. It is infinitely longer than no 

 number, and is longer than 1, 2, 3, at the outset, but it must be remembered that 

 it grows no larger in a lifetime. At the end of a natural lifetime, if one's collec- 

 tion is good for anything at all, it will begin to gravitate naturally toward the 

 repository for such things, the public museum, and there the numbering can be 

 done according to the latest and most approved methods. In the meantime the 

 amateur has had a sort of system, and a certain kind of order has prevailed. It 

 seems to have some advantages in field collecting because the number of each 

 and every specimen is in mind, unless one is particularly absorbed and absent- 



