69 



MICROSCOPICAL SECTION. 

 18th March, 1861. 



A communication from Captain Anderson, R.M.S. 

 "Canada, written at sea on his homeward voyage, excited 

 considerable interest. He states that Dr. Wallich's pamphlet 

 would be communicated to the Boston Society of Natural 

 History by Professor Agassiz, who was particularly interested 

 in the Ophiocoma found at so great a depth. The Professor 

 is now engaged in preparing a work upon the natural history 

 of that class of echinoderms, which he has studied for many 

 years, and claims to have the finest collection of those animals 

 in existence, made on the coasts from Greenland and Labrador 

 to Mexico and round Cape Horn to California. Since the 

 pubHcation, in 1848, of the "Principles of Zoology," by 

 Agassiz and Gould (a copy of which is presented to the 

 Section), the Professor has ascertained that the system of 

 tubes and water pores, described at page 1 23, exists in all 

 animals which much vary their depths of water in the sea, and 

 in the herring they may be seen with the naked eye along 

 the side of the neck. 



With reference to the removal of tallow from soundings, 

 Dr. Hayes, the Assayist for the State of Massachusets, stated 

 to Captain Anderson that heated turpentine, poured amongst 

 the soundings, will remove all the tallow with it through filter- 

 ing paper ; the operation should be twice repeated, and the 

 residue finally washed with sulphuric ether. 



Dr. J. Bacon presented a copy of his Report upon the 

 Chemical Composition and Microscopical Characters of the 

 Pearl, said to have been formed in the interior of a cocoa nut 

 at Singapore, in the possession of Frederick Bush, Esq., and 

 exhibited by Dr. Winslow.* 



Captain Anderson, in a very able manner, gives the outline 

 of a plan which has occurred to him for rendering available to 



* Page 290, vol. vii., Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History 

 for 1860. 



